Out of the Chamber
by thegoldenfirebolt
Summary: Harry isn't able to destroy Tom's diary in the Chamber of Secrets and Riddle has to make a quick escape with the Boy Who Lived. Harry just wants to escape but Riddle is being more secretive about his plans. Will either of them get what they want?
1. Where Are We?

Disclaimer- Not mine, wish it was but everything belongs to J.K.

Chapter One

Where Are We?

Harry woke up, feeling very groggy. He wondered if anyone else woke up from unconsciousness as often as he managed to. Harry blinked a few times to try and clear his vision and realised that he had fallen asleep with his glasses on. The consequence being that one of the arms was completely bent out of shape. He sat up slowly, groaning at the pain in his head and took a good look around him.

This definitely wasn't the Hogwarts hospital wing. Harry frowned, that was normally where he woke up after blacking out. He was sitting on warm wooden floorboards; warm because of a large fire burning in a grate next to him. He was thankful that he hadn't stretched out in his sleep or he would have a shoe-full of hot embers. Well actually he wouldn't have done. Harry stared at his feet for a second, wondering where his scruffy trainers had disappeared to.

There was a sudden noise behind him and Harry spun around on the floor. He saw Riddle sitting calmly at a kitchen table, leaning back in his chair with his arms sprawled across the backs of the seats next to him. Riddle had his head tilted to one side, considering Harry carefully.

"Where are we, Tom?" Harry asked. Memories of the chamber were rushing back to him. "Is Ginny OK? Why aren't we at Hogwarts? Where's my wand? And my shoes? What are..." Riddle seemed to realise that Harry wasn't going to stop talking any time soon and had picked up a wand from the table -Harry's wand- and used it to cast a wordless silencing charm. Harry's hand flew to his throat in surprise.

"Calm down, Harry Potter." he said, "We are in one of my follower's homes. We are here because I want you to be here. As you can see, I have your wand and I will hold onto it- you shall not be needing it for the foreseeable future. As to your friend Miss Weasley, her condition is still too unstable to judge. She is not however dead yet."

Harry glared up at Riddle from his place on the floor. He started to retort back but stopped when he remembered he was still being held under the silencing charm. Riddle stood up suddenly, and strode towards Harry. Suddenly feeling vulnerable Harry threw himself backwards and tried to back up, his back started sweating from the heat of the fire.

Harry wasn't going anywhere fast though so Riddle reached down easily and pulled him up by his arms. Harry tried to free himself but Riddle was much bigger and simply spun the twelve year old around before dumping him in a wooden chair and securing him with a sticking charm. Harry tried to push himself up using his feet but only succeeded in tipping the chair forwards. The instant before Harry's forehead connected with the solid table, a slim arm shot out and pulled him back to safety.

Riddle walked back around the table, "If you are quite done with trying to kill yourself..." Harry's eyes narrowed at the elder boy. He had only tried to stand up.

Riddle sat back down in his old seat, directly across from Harry. "Are you hungry?" He asked, summoning a pot of tea and two mugs from a counter. Harry nodded warily, he didn't trust Tom to not put some potion in his food.

"Good," said Riddle, "Listen to what I have to tell you and I might feed you today instead of tomorrow."

Harry's heart sank, he hadn't eaten since breakfast of the day he went down to the Chamber and he had a feeling that that was more than a day ago now. He went longer with less food at Privet Drive, of course but that didn't mean he enjoyed it. Tom poured out two cups of tea from the pot and set one just within Harry's reach.

"So, as I hope you have managed to figure out, I have kidnapped you. Don't gape at me, Harry Potter." Riddle said, raising a perfectly formed eyebrow. "I can call it what it is. You will be living here with me, for as long as I want you here. Do not imagine you can escape. Do not think you will be rescued, by the old man or anyone else. You will follow my rules, there will be consequences if you do not, and you will learn to respect those."

Harry stopped listening, taking in the rest of the room. He could see one door which looked like it would lead to the rest of the house. There weren't any windows that he could see, though... Ouch! Harry flinched, it felt like he had just been stung on the arm by a particularly vicious wasp. He focused back on Riddle who was frowning.

"Pay attention to me Harry Potter. I do not take kindly to being ignored by children." Harry had the sudden urge to stick out his tongue at Tom. "Do anything so childish as you are thinking and I will jinx your mouth shut for two days." Harry rolled his eyes. Riddle gave him a challenging look and Harry flinched away, expecting some dark curse to come his way. He was unsurprised by the stinging hex which hit his left ear a moment later.

"As I was trying to say before we lost track, I expect you to do everything I tell you to. You may eat when I say, speak when I say and sleep when I let you. If you impress me enough then I might even allow you your wand back someday."

Harry felt anger bubble up inside him as it never had before. He could feel the bonds sticking him to his seat and began to saw away at them in his mind. Imagining every join being worn away fibre by fibre.

"I don't know how long you might be useful to me, Harry Potter but you should know that you might never leave this house again."

This was too much for Harry who suddenly broke through both the sticking charm and the silencing charms which Riddle had cast on him. Harry jumped forwards and grabbed hold of his mug of tea, launching it towards Tom. Without waiting to see if it made contact, he leapt away from the table and towards the only door. He made it as far as halfway down the hall, towards the staircase when he felt arms around his midsection, lifting him up off the floor.

"You bastard. Let me go!" Harry shouted as he tried to jam his elbows back into Tom's head.

Riddle hauled Harry back to the kitchen and picked up the wand from the table. He pushed Harry down to his knees, facing the blank wall and cast a spell with a complicated gesture. "Adolehret" Harry's arms felt like they had been thrust into a fire and the burning didn't stop until Riddle reached down and pulled up his arms so that his hands rested on the back of his head.

"Let's try a little time out, Harry Potter. Do try to not move until I come back to remove this spell. I don't want to deal with any psychological burns.

Harry closed his eyes trying to stay perfectly still to avoid the pain which accompanied every movement. He could heard Tom moving behind him, opening drawers and clinking the crockery off the table. At one point he heard Tom walk past him on his way to a cupboard. He resisted the urge to turn and look at the boy but sustained his posture and watched as Tom passed him through the door to the hall.

After half an hour, all Harry could think about was the pain in his shoulders and lower back. Harry tried to shift a little but felt the burning start up again if he moved at all.

Sometime later Harry could feel tears pooling in his eyes and was doing all he could to prevent them from dropping. Footsteps started sounding on the stairs. Riddle came into sight and stood over Harry, watching him.

"Are you ready to behave yet?" Riddle asked.

Harry's muscles were shaking and he was developing cramp in his left foot. "Yes," he said, quietly, trying to only move his lips.

Tom nodded and released the spell with a short "Finite Incantatem"

Harry instantly slumped forward against the wall, arching his back. Riddle reached down impatiently and pulled him up to his feet. Harry stumbled because both of his legs had gone to sleep some time ago.

Tom pulled him out through the hall and up some carpeted stairs. These came out in a corridor with five doors. They headed through the door on the left.

The room was quite plain really, it looked like an ordinary muggle bedroom. It reminded Harry a lot of Dudley's second bedroom at Privet Drive except without all of the broken junk. There was a bed and a dresser but that was about it. Though Harry could see doorway to a bathroom which was covered by a curtain rather than a door. Riddle lead Harry to the bed and deposited him there.

Harry sat down expecting a long lecture but all he got was a brief "Stay here" before Tom turned around and left the room. Harry waited for all of 2 minutes before standing and trying the door handle. It was locked and Harry felt a buzz in his fingers like a small static shock and was surprised to see his whole hand had turned blue. Not blue like it was cold, but a bright luminous Smurf blue. Harry walked back to the wooden dressed and unscrewed one of the wooden handles curiously. He took it over to the door and pressed it against the wooden panels. Nothing happened. He pressed it against the door handle instead, it turned blue as well. He did it again. The handle turned Slytherin green. Once more and there was Hufflepuff yellow. Harry grinned, knowing what was left and was disappointed when it turned pink… and then purple...and then silver.

About an hour later Harry was leaning back against the wall from his bed, flinging all of the moveable items he could find towards the door. He had a pretty high success rate so now his pillow was orange, the pillowcase a neon green. The cupboard handles were all different colours. He had taken off and washed his socks which had been covered in slime from the chamber. They had turned from the horrible plain grey of Uncle Vernon's old socks into a vibrant maroon which reminded him of Ron but was much too dark to be a Gryffindor colour. There had been no reds or golds appearing a Harry knew it had to be deliberate. He wondered if the blanket on his bed would change colour as a whole or if each quilted section would change individually. However he was quite fond of the thing and didn't want to change it irreversibly, so he settled for having an emerald sheet instead.

* * *

There were footsteps on the stairs. Harry stood up off the bed because he didn't want to look vulnerable if Tom came in. The footsteps stopped just outside the door and there was the sound of wood tapping against the door. Riddle wasn't the type to knock before entering and Harry didn't particularly want him there anyway so Harry didn't bother to tell him to come in. There was a sudden loud swear from outside the door.

"Three hundred and seventy attempts to open the door handle? If you've gotten yourself killed from overdosing on shock hexes then you don't deserve to be revived!" The door burst open and Riddle was standing, glowering from the doorway.

He was speechless. Harry looked around the room. He supposed that some of the colours did clash quite badly but nothing seemed to be damaged. Harry himself only had a self-inflicted blue right forearm and a purple hand.

Tom visibly shook himself out of his surprise and came towards Harry, who shrank back a little so that he was standing against the bed. Tom raised an eyebrow at the defensive move but Harry could see the bruises that had come up on his arms from where Tom had grabbed him earlier.

"So," Tom said, "You decided to redecorate in here? I wish you had mentioned it, I could have helped sooner." Riddle lifted his wand and muttered a few words in Latin that Harry didn't quite catch. Harry himself returned to his normal colouring, then quite suddenly all of the charmed objects in the room vanished completely. A few more words and the walls changed from the yellowy shade they had been to an emerald wallpaper with silver snake designs which moved by themselves.

"Something more befitting of our heritage, I think." Harry sighed heavily, he liked snakes but after the basilisk was perfectly happy to keep his distance, and the Slytherin influence was way over the top.

"I am going out." Riddle announced, Harry looked back at him. "I have changed the charm on the door. If you touch any part of it then you will be stunned for a few hours, so my advice would be to stay away." He turned to leave.

"I'm bored" Harry blurted.

Riddle stopped for a second, thinking. He flicked Harry's wand and a second later parchment and a quill and ink came flying through the still open door and planted themselves on the floor next to the bed. "Here, keep yourself entertained. Try doing some studying or something. Merlin knows you do badly enough in most of your classes anyway. Maybe if you become a little more educated you could learn to actually participate in interesting conversation"

"I don't do badly at school!" Harry said defensively. "I do as well as Ron anyway, and better than Neville."

"Congratulations," Riddle sneered, "You are performing better than an idiot and on a par with the laziest person in your year. Do try to do something productive that doesn't involve chasing after trouble or annoying me. Sweet dreams, Harry Potter. I will be back tomorrow."

Riddle closed the door firmly behind him and Harry dropped back onto the bed, exhausted. That meant no food for today then. . At least he had a bathroom here, he could get water whenever he wanted and even if Tom starved him ten he could fill up on water and last twice as long. He lay back and felt for his pillow before swearing. Tom had just vanished most of the few things Harry had to begin with. At least he hadn't dragged the bed across like he had originally planned, that would have made this worse than the Dursley's.

Harry frowned at that. He had just been kidnapped by Voldemort – well some version of him anyway - and he had been hurt by him, with the curses before and the hex on the door. Still, somehow, Harry thought he might prefer here to being back at the Dursley's and locked under the stairs.

He was hardly feeling comfortable though, under no illusions that Tom could take all of this away with a few words. He could leave him for hours with that restricting curse on and Harry would be powerless.

Harry decided to have a shower first and went back into the bathroom. It was only small, with barely enough room for the toilet, a sink and a shower base. It was strange having a curtain instead of a door and the water from the shower seemed to be held in by magical wards since there was no walls around it. Harry mourned the loss of his grey towel, again regretting changing so much of his stuff. He thought it would be best to wash himself and his clothes now, while he could expect Riddle to be away for a few hours.

Harry turned the water on and adjusted it by speaking to it – like all the showers he had seen in the wizarding world. He washed his clothes first, wringing out the slime, blood and mud from the Chamber of Secrets. He hung up his robes over the frame of the bed, moving the blanket and mattress onto the floor. Finally he stepped into the shower and called for the heat to turn up. He stood like that for ages, just letting the heat wash over him and soak into his bones.

Stepping out, he wrapped himself in the blanket and curled up on the mattress. Harry fell asleep very quickly, exhausted from his long day- days? How long had it really been?

He slept for quite some time before sinking into a dream. It started with him watching Ginny Weasley. She was in a bed in the Hogwarts' Hospital Wing, surrounded by her family. She was breathing slowly and shallowly and not responding to anyone, even when Percy reached down and squeezed her hand. This dream fell away slowly and was replaced by another.

A familiar looking figure walked into a wrecked house. The man pushed through the gate and the front door. Opening them with his wand instead of touching them. Once inside he climbed the stairs, past a burn on the wall and a section of broken bannister, up into what looked like a child's nursery. Harry could see a mobile over the bed with magical creatures, and the odd combination of a stag, wolf, dog and rat. The man seemed to know exactly where to go and knelt down beside the crib. He reached one long-fingered hand underneath it and pulled out a long, thin yew wand.

The man caressed the wand gently, like he had missed it and the wand responded by producing a set of bright green sparks. The wand in the man's other hand oddly let out a stream of red sparks which mixed with the green to produce a small patterned snake which circled around the man before vanishing into a silver shower that crackled.

"How curious" The man said. He stood back up to his feet and disappeared with a CRACK.

Harry opened his eyes to the bright room. The lights were still on in the room and he had no way of dimming them without his wand. Groggily he stood up and dressed back in his robes before reassembling his bed. Harry wondered what time it was, but since he had no idea when he had gone to sleep it wouldn't have been much help if he had known.

Harry dropped into a chair in front of the desk, feeling bored. He picked up the quill and wondered what he should write about. His first thought was to write a plea for help. So far though, he hadn't seen any windows or doors and Riddle probably knew how to stop owls from appearing so there wasn't much hope that Hedwig was going to turn up either.

There was a fireplace downstairs so it was possible that the house was connected to the Floo Network like the Weasley's house. They must have arrived there somehow, Harry thought. Although he knew that adult witches and wizards had a way to travel long distances very fast. The 6th and 7th years were complaining about applying for licences, Oliver Wood and Percy had spent entire lunchtimes discussing 'The Three D's'. Harry was sure there was a charm that let groups of people travel together as well.

Harry remembered the letter that the Ministry of Magic sent him the year before. They obviously had some way of finding out when underage wizards performed magic outside of school. Or rather when spells were cast near them. Harry wasn't sure how that worked in wizarding households though - Ron's parents cast spells around their children all of the time. Still, if he ever had the opportunity then it might help the ministry to find where he was.

The thought that Tom might ask to see what he had done with the parchment stopped him from writing that note. He knew if Hermione was here then she would have a handful of helpful spells. She would be able to turn the words invisible or something. Or she would know how to write it in some intelligent code. Harry absently started drawing patterns around the outside of the sheet. He sighed, the only thing that came to mind was the Transfiguration final exam question. Rabbits into slippers; that was it. If whatever he wrote was either bad or good then it was more likely that Riddle would give him more parchment in future. If he kept doodling or spent his first sheet writing a letter then Tom probably wouldn't bother wasting any on him.

Harry managed to write down all of the theory he could remember on the background- not very much when he looked at it like this. He would be surprised if he did get a good result for the exam. It was the hardest question though, so he would probably scrape through.

This was all assuming that there was going to be a school left to return to. The basilisk was dead but he didn't know what was happening there, or even whether Ron and Lockhart had made it out or not, Ginny might not recover. Hagrid was still in Azkaban, Dumbledore was suspended from headmastership and Hogwarts was about to experience an influx of larger spiders. Hermione and the other petrified students hadn't been revived yet and Harry wouldn't put it past Tom to sabotage the mandrake draught.

Footsteps on the stairs again. Tom was back.


	2. A New Friend

Chapter Two

Lunch and a New Friend

Riddle looked as happy as Harry had seen him. His face lit up in quite a nice way and he looked oddly approachable.

"Kill anyone I know today" Harry asked, with a false cheerful tone. "Or did you just go for a spot of muggle torturing?"

"I don't think you knew them actually," Tom smiled. Harry looked away, hoping that Tom was just joking.

"Can I have some shoes?"

"Shoes?" Tom said, "I thought you might feel like lunch, but since you threw the last thing I gave you at my head. I'm not convinced that it's in my best interests"

"If you let me go then you wouldn't have to worry about it," Harry grumbled.

Tom ignored him, "Come downstairs now, if you behave yourself then you can eat something. If you don't then you can keep me company while I eat." He had a strange gleam in his eye now and Harry didn't want to be Tom's entertainment. He had an uncanny feeling that it would involve no inconsiderable discomfort on his part.

Harry went downstairs first, slowly so that he could try to see all of the doors on the landing. They were all a uniform pine and all shut tight. Harry thought he saw the tell-tale flash of a ward run over one the door jambs.

"You won't be going in any of those rooms, Potter."

Harry could see another door on the ground floor now, it probably led to some sort of living room or dining room. It might even lead to the front door. There had to be one somewhere. Maybe they were underground, Harry thought absently, he still hadn't seen any windows. And Slytherins seemed to like dungeons.

The floor was cold in the kitchen now, the fire must have been out for a while. Harry sat down in the seat he was in yesterday and felt a sticking charm fix him to the chair and his feet solidly to the floor. He raised his eyebrows.

"Can't have you trying to bash your brains out again." Riddle said.

Riddle took a pan off the stove, freezing the flame as he did so. Two bowls and spoons flew onto the table. Tom put the pan down, made the bowls fill themselves and summoned himself a roll from the counter, like he did this every day rather than only having a body for less than a week.

Harry shook his head, it wasn't the first time he had the feeling that he had been asleep for a lot longer than he had thought. He started to eat his soup hungrily, it was better than he had expected from a 16 year old dark lord. "Tom?" he asked uncertainly, the other boy looked up, "What's the date today?"

Tom considered before answering, "This is July."

Harry's stomach dropped, along with his spoon and his jaw. He went into the chamber on the 22nd of June. Definitely more than a week then. "What did you do with me?"

"Relax Potter," Riddle said, "You slept for most of it. I just used you to top up my energy. I had to leave little Miss Weasley behind after all. Would you rather I had finished her off instead?"

Harry ducked his head angrily. Of course he didn't want Ginny to have died.

"The energy transfer works a lot better with you anyway so don't worry. I probably won't need to use her again unless I decide to kill you" Harry was starting to get slightly worried about the casual allusions to his possible impending doom. But they seemed to make Tom more cheerful…

"You were quite cute curled up on my kitchen floor for all that time, actually. Nagini wasn't very happy of course, she thought we should just kill you. And it was a nightmare trying to not step on you sometimes." Harry looked at his wrist, he had wondered how he had got that weird bruise, and no wonder he had a sore back- would it really have been that much effort to levitate him upstairs or something?

"Have you stopped with the energy thing?"

Tom nodded, "Totally finished. Now I have a body I can keep myself well enough. The body is the tricky part, you know."

"Really?" Harry couldn't think of anything else to say to that. They didn't exactly teach this at Hogwarts. They tended to teach them that this sort of thing was impossible, though Snape would probably tell them that there was a potion you could brew to do the same thing. Harry finished his soup and to his delight the bowl refilled itself instantly. Riddle frowned at him diving straight in.

"We're going to have to teach you some table manners. It is obvious that you were a Gryffindor."

"I'm still a Gryffindor!" Harry said through a mouthful of soup. Tom looked disgusted and flicked his wand so that Harry was suddenly being held upright in his seat by thin, strong strings which prevented him from slouching. The soup spoon also shifted in his grip into a more polite position so that Harry was holding it less like a spade.

"The first thing they teach new Slytherins is how to not embarrass their house. Obviously that is something they skip in the lesser houses. In future, you will eat properly at all times or you will not have anything to eat."

Harry growled but was glad that Tom hadn't taken the meal away. He _had_ been behaving more like Ron in an effort to annoy the meticulous older boy.

Harry felt something alive brush past his ankle.

"Tom!" Panic crept into his voice. He could only move his knees, he had no way of getting away from whatever it was. And it was huge. It circled around both of his feet and started making its way up his leg. "Tom what is that?"

Riddle looked way too calm, "Don't move, Potter." Harry was already frozen in place and shot Tom a dirty look. "_Potter, meet Nagini. Nagini, try not to eat him now he's awake."_ Harry caught the Parseltongue edge to his voice. It was a snake then.

"_Hello, youngling. You are finally awake. The master said we can kill you someday, it's much more fun when you are awake._"

Harry's mind was blank with fear. Normally when he was about to die he had a chance to move, to try to escape. Now he was strapped in his chair with the huge head of what felt like a very large magical serpent lying in his lap.

"Potter, say 'hello' to Nagini. She's been very patient waiting for you to wake up."

"Hello Nagini." Harry managed weakly. "Tom, can I go now? Please."

Riddle frowned, "That was not parseltongue, boy. I know you can speak, you made the journey to my ancestor's halls unaided. You will have to become accustomed to Nagini, you know. She has a free run of this house, I will not deny her that."

No, Harry thought, it's only me that can't go anywhere. "It makes me a little nervous, you know, having to talk to someone who's been promised they can kill me."

"Does it scare you, Harry Potter? That is useful to know."

Damn, Harry thought. Three guesses who his companion was going to be next time Riddle got mad at him.

_ "Master, can we kill him now?" _

_ "Not yet Nagini. We need him a little more first."_

Wait, what? "What do you need me for?" Harry asked

_"What does the youngling say_?" Nagini hissed.

_"Potter, it's not polite to speak in a language that is not spoken by all present company."_

"I can't just hiss on demand! It doesn't work like that." Every other time he had spoken Parseltongue he had been looking at some sort of snake. He couldn't see the one that had planted itself in his lap.

_"It is not just _hissing_! This is an ancient and noble tongue." _Riddle was incensed. _"When do you normally speak it?" _

"Normally, it's when I'm talking to a snake. Or something that looks like one anyway." He was surprised that it had worked with the tap actually. Maybe that one was special somehow.

_"Do not be foolish. If you speak the language of the snakes then you will always be able to do so. You are simply not trying hard enough."_

"Maybe that's only if you're born being able to do it. The only reason I can is because you blasted me with something when you tried to kill me!"

"I hardly tried to kill you," said Tom, "Voldemort hasn't really been me since he was 16. I'm the more charismatic, less insane version of the Dark Lord we all know and love!"

"Thank you for the potted history…"

_"What's happening?"_ Nagini hissed.

_"I am explaining to the boy why I kidnapped him"_

"No you aren't! That's not at all what's happening!" Harry shouted, confused. He flinched hard when Nagini jumped at the noise.

"I would be if you would stop getting scared and just shut up." Tom said. "We were just talking about how you now possess some of the same powers as me, were we not?"

Harry nodded, he wasn't certain him shouting that five minutes ago counted as a conversation but at least Riddle had started talking.

"Do you at least understand that I am a part of the man you know as Voldemort? I only have half of a soul. I was trapped in my diary with that. The Voldemort that you know has split his soul many times. He becomes weaker and less human every time. There is not much man left in him now."

Harry considered this. "So you mean there are other things like you? Loads of Voldemorts stuck in random things, and they get less powerful. So is the original one the weakest then? He seemed pretty strong to me."

"You think that was strength? That pathetic creature that feeds on unicorns? Yes, there are others. Pieces of a once proud soul which have been gathering dust and rust in hidden priceless heirlooms cared for by incompetent idiots."

"So which incompetent idiot had your diary then?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"I left it within the capable hands of Abraxas Malfoy. It seems that he got himself killed by someone in the war and his idiotic son found many of the items which I left in their manor."

Harry grinned at Voldemort insulting Malfoy's father.

"So what happens if one dies or gets destroyed or whatever?" Harry asked. He didn't really see the point in the soul things. Maybe Voldemort made them by accident or they were some sort of by-product.

"Within the correct circumstances, one of the fragments becomes sentient. There are a few ways to get hold of a body. I used the simplest method. Miss Weasley poured her heart and soul into that book and I willingly accepted. _And when we left, I brought you along to top up from before fetching the ingredients for a potion to fully strengthen me. Including some of the poison from my dear Nagini here." _Harry thought he might get an even worse headache if Tom was going to insist on switching languages mid-speech.

"Where did you get the huge snake from anyway?" Harry asked, "Did you nick it from a zoo somewhere?"

"I did not 'nick' Nagini. _She _is a very rare, very magical being. I fetched her from Albania where she was being cared for for me. With any luck it should slow down my elder self as well. From what I have heard he has been there. Nagini was perfectly happy to come with me. It irks her to be milked every day. And I can easily provide her with more than enough food."

"Wait, so the Oldie Voldie was living off snake milk, and you went to Albania to steal her so you can stop yourself from coming back? What did you do with me while you were in Albania anyway?"

Tom stared at him for a minute. "I have absolutely no idea which part of that I should be correcting first. I left you here of course. I could hardly take the unconscious 'saviour' of the wizarding world through the international Floo system, could I?"

Harry felt a bit put out about being left on the kitchen floor for however long while Riddle wandered off to another country. "You just dumped me? What if you'd died? What if I'd died?"

Tom looked at him scornfully, "I tied you up of course. Couldn't have you barrelling about the place if you woke up. You dying then would just have been delaying the inevitable. You are the expendable one in this situation after all. You already saved the world when you were one, you aren't going to be able to top that."

Tom decided that now would be the best time to release Harry from his chair. Harry instantly looked down at the snake.

_"Oh, holy shi…"_

Harry was cut off again by a silencing charm. His eyes almost dropped out of his head. The snake _was_ enormous. It wasn't exaggerating when it threatened to eat him. She was probably three times Harry's height from head to tail.

_"So now you can talk?" _Riddle sniggered, the noise sounded slightly foreign from him. It would have suited Malfoy a lot better. Maybe that was another thing that they taught Slytherins on the first day.

He stopped here to look fondly at the snake who responded by uncurling herself a little and slithering over to him to have her head stroked. Harry collapsed in his seat, trying to breathe through his frantic heart beats. Tom smiled happily at this and Nagini wound up him and draped around his shoulders like some kind of terrifying scarf.

"But back to you Harry," Tom said gesturing to him across the table. "You are here so that I can try to examine exactly why you survived. Your mudblood mother could not possibly have known more magic at her young age than the great Lord Voldemort at the height of his powers."

Harry seethed quietly, everyone always told him his parents had been brilliant for their time. And Tom had practically just finished saying Voldemort was a weak idiot.

"The Dark Lord is not a fool, Harry Potter. He has a greater knowledge of the old magic than almost anyone alive. He learned those from the Lord Slytherin himself!"

Harry frowned, Slytherin was definitely dead. He had died about a thousand years ago.

"Parseltongue, Potter. Slytherin was a parselmouth. Voldemort is a parselmouth. Have you not come across parselscript? Even if people are suspicious of you, they had no right to deny you that heritage- however ill-gained it may be. The head of Slytherin house at least should be aware of it, not to mention Dumbledore"

Harry felt that he couldn't be blamed for not knowing that it existed. Snakes aren't exactly renowned for their writing ability after all. He had to laugh at the idea of Snape willing teaching him anything he wasn't being paid to which wasn't related to ingredient preparation in detention.

Harry wished he could just go back to bed. He was still pretty worn out. Mind you, that probably had a lot to do with being Riddle's personal battery pack for however long.

Riddle stood up, carefully dislodging Nagini who slithered loudly out of the room, obviously bored with the lack of live meals. "So Potter, did you do anything useful while I was away?"

Harry mumbled, "Some transfiguration revision, nothing very interesting. White rabbits into slippers sort of thing. Probably not enough torture for your taste- too cutesy"

Riddle smiled happily, "Yes, but you have to start small to think big! Rabbits are mammals, quite close to humans really when you get down to it, well close to muggles. It's not that much of a stretch."

Harry wasn't sure whether to be impressed or disgusted by Tom's casual and confident suggestion of alternatives. He settled on disgusted and felt quite nauseous.

"I'll take a look at what you have written and if it is not complete gibberish then we can show you some parselscript, then you can translate a couple of books for me and I might be convinced to keep you around for a couple of weeks after all!"

The parchment zoomed downstairs and Harry felt sicker. Tom probably wasn't going to be impressed by the snitch pattern bordering the pages. Harry sincerely hoped that parselscript turned out to be intuitive. Lessons with Riddle sounded far too stressful.


	3. The Toughest Lesson

Chapter Three

The Toughest Lesson

Of course it went as badly as could have been imagined. Well, almost as badly. Tom hadn't yet followed through on any of his death threats but he did look like he might be getting there. Oh and Nagini had only started eating him once, and she had started at his feet as well (apparently that meant she liked him, most people weren't so lucky).

Tom's lips had gone very thin when he saw the doodles on the paper, reminiscent of McGonnagall. It was pretty obvious Harry had started half-heartedly and hadn't improved much from there. Harry was still stuck to his seat and stared at his thumbs awkwardly while waiting for Riddle to finish reading. Harry heard the scrunch of paper and looked up just in time to get nailed between the eyes by his essay.

"Hey!"

Tom leaned on the edge of the table and stared down at Harry. Harry felt a sort of tickling in his head, like someone was taking a quill to his memories. He was suddenly remembering how McGonagall had looked in that transfiguration class about the rabbits. The writing on the board was blurry though in his mind's eye. What he sensed most clearly was how nervous the class had been about the chamber of secrets, how dismayed they had been to hear that they were still going to have to sit the exams at the end of the year. Lastly he remembered how cross his teacher had been at their reaction.

Harry suddenly felt like the quill in his head suddenly turned its sharp point down and scratched its way back out again. The memory now felt sore somehow. It left a worse feeling behind than he had associated with it before.

"So you are just stupid." Tom said scornfully, "Well I have to say that I'm glad I found out now rather than later. It's a pity you couldn't have inherited a little of my intellect."

"What just happened?" Harry gasped. "Did you just read my mind? Argh, my head is so sore!"

Tom seemed to be sulking from his perch and kept glaring at Harry. It was a different glare to before though. Harry felt like Tom's eyes were suddenly a lot less deep than they had been. They were however considerably angrier.

"Yes, I saw that." Tom snapped, "I just used a complex branch of magic known as Legilimency- I wouldn't expect you to have heard of it yet; even if I had mastered it by the end of fourth year. Of course I had to master Occlumency first to deal with Dumbledore trying to break into my thoughts in Transfiguration. But no, at the end of Second year, you still haven't learned enough about magic to know that the mind is not so simple as to be read like a book. Although judging by some of the spill sentences you were throwing at me earlier, I might have found an exception to that rule"

Harry didn't have a clue what Riddle was talking about but decided to let him have his rant. A thought struck him, "Have I done that before?" Tom raised an eyebrow- he did that a lot. "The mind reading part, when you pulled me into the diary. It felt a bit like that."

Tom seemed a little surprised by the connection and went straight into teacher mode. "That was a similar form of magic, although really the mechanism there was closer to a pensieve"

Harry nodded like he had a clue about what that was (he didn't) and Tom kept talking.

"That is a memory which I had put inside the diary. Specifically chosen by me to show to others. I was still the one in control. I could choose what to show you and you would have been unable to break into other memories or choose which to experience."

"So you could have done that before, in my mind? Was that tickling you looking for that lesson out of all of the others?"

Tom nodded to agree.

"Did it have to be so painful when you stopped?"

"Yes," Tom said simply, "I needed to let you know that I didn't approve of how unfocussed you were on your teacher. I won't accept you not paying attention to anything I teach you like that. Technically though, I would be able to explore your mind painlessly. If I felt the need."

"I don't know if you noticed," Harry replied angrily, "But I was a little preoccupied at the time. I spent the night before being chased by the now adult and extremely angry giant acromantula which you unleashed on the Forbidden Forest! And I had just discovered the entrance to the Chamber and thought I might have to face whatever and whoever was down there without a clue."

"If you don't want to come across monsters then you shouldn't stick your nose in- let alone march into a place actually called 'the Forbidden Forest' or 'Chamber of Secrets'. When exactly did you find out what Slytherins beast was?"

Harry thought about it for a moment. "Just before break I think, the day we went into the Chamber. Yeah, we went to find McGonagall in the staff room to tell her."

Riddle looked disbelieving, "Are you telling me that an entire school full of witches and wizards- with an entire library at their fingertips, with the backing of a board of governors and twice as many worried parents and guardians and with Albus-bloody-Dumbledore couldn't work out that the monster from the Chamber of Secrets – the tomb of Salazar Slytherin, the world's most prominent parselmouth ever. A creature that was petrifying students and had in fact killed. A creature which must have lived for over one thousand years with very little food. Honestly, nobody worked that out? Only the parselmouth could hear it! That girl even died in a bathroom, they could have worked out how it was moving!" Tom's fist slammed into the table, clattering the bowls that were still lying there from lunch.

"All the spiders left the castle, and that Weasley girl killed all of the roosters for me! Basilisks are even mentioned in every textbook there is for Care of Magical Creatures. Which idiot is teaching that now?"

Harry jumped a little, surprised to be asked a question after all of that aimless ranting. "I dunno, we don't take it until third year."

Tom scowled "Wait, wait!" Harry jumped in, trying to avoid Tom diving into his head. "He's a really old guy. He's missing an arm and a leg and an eye, I think he lost both his ears too. I can't remember his name though, and I'm not sure what he actually looks like under all those scars." Tom seemed to accept this description and Harry managed to avoid having another lecture (or some painful curse) aimed at him.

"Tom, you said you learned Occlu-thingy to keep Professor Dumbledore out of your head. Do you think I could learn it?"

Riddle grinned again, "I'm surprised there was anything worthwhile to find in your thick skull, to be honest. And no, I expect you couldn't learn without a teacher. You certainly would not manage if you had no textbook. I don't see any reason why I would want to furnish you with either, seeing as I'm the only one who might want to break through your defences. Why would I make it more difficult for myself?" The grin became a bit more snarky somehow "Of course you would never put up much of a challenge but you would probably prefer to not endure the pain."

"Well don't think that, for heaven's sake," Harry rolled his eyes. "I mean, what's a little pain? I love pain! You haven't even threatened to kill me for about an hour!"

"Well that's soon remedied." Tom was using a sickly sweet voice that put Harry's hair on its ends. The boy instantly regretted his sarcasm. Harry's wand appeared in Tom's long fingers, "Crucio."

Harry had never been in so much pain. It felt like burning knives were being stabbed into him all over his body. He was screaming as loudly as he could and writhing in his seat. He would have fallen to the floor without the charm holding him there. Harry could taste blood, he had bitten straight through his bottom lip but the pain still didn't stop. He curled up as small as possible into the chair, clenching his fists and wrapping his arms around his knees.

Then just as suddenly, it was gone. Harry collapsed back, panting fast and rubbing at the bloody half-circles on his palms where his nails had cut through the skin.

"What do you say, Harry Potter?"

Harry grit his teeth together. He didn't want to apologise, but he knew that was what Voldemort was waiting for. In that moment Harry was the most scared he had been since he had woken up here yesterday.

"Boy this definitely hurts you more than it does me."

"I'm sorry." Harry said stiffly, "I shouldn't have used that tone."

"Good boy." Tom ruffled his hair. Harry objected to being treated like a puppy but wasn't about to say anything with Riddle in such an unstable mood. "Lesson learned I take it? Shall we move onto the next?"

Harry nodded, eager to talk about anything else. Tom conjured some sheets of parchment and started on the subject of white rabbits.

It actually made quite a lot of sense after Riddle had spent some time explaining. They talked through the similarities between the subject and the objective. Tom explained why visualisation was so important. He also tried to explain the outcome using advanced arithmancy but gave up when he realised Harry had absolutely no idea what was going on (Tom did however spend the next five minutes while Harry struggled with a first year transfiguration equation muttering darkly under his breath about the poor state of the education system these days).

Harry earned himself a cuff over the back of the head for a smart comment about Dumbledore obviously being a better teacher than Tom gave him credit for if Tom's own education had been so superior.

A while later Tom went upstairs to look for a logarithmic ruler (Harry had no idea). He let his head drop onto the table for a moment. He must have been sitting in the same place for hours. His feet were numb from not moving in so long. Actually it felt like the feeling was spreading up his legs. He tried to move them but that wasn't working. They felt like they were being squeezed together really tightly through a long, cool tube

"_Nagini!"_ Harry jumped horrified. Terrified of what he might see, he glanced under the table. The snake's sharp fangs were poised right below his kneecaps. Her mouth wide open and Harry's legs halfway down her throat. Harry still couldn't move, he thought he might be having a heart attack. _"Nagini, I told you not to eat the boy until I say you can. I still want him for a few days now!"_

The snake seemed to sigh through its nostrils which ruffled the bottom of Harry's robes gently. Then very, very agonisingly slowly, the snake began to retreat. When Harry's feet finally appeared from the serpent's mouth. Tom waved his wand and Harry was released from the charms. Nagini gave his foot a last flick with her tongue before gliding back out of the room.

Harry stood, wobbled slightly on his feet for a second before running to the sink to be violently sick.

"That's a bit of an overreaction don't you think?" he heard Tom observe from very far away. Then everything dimmed and Harry tipped forward, slipping down the counter in a dead faint.

Harry woke up on the floor again with something heavy and uncomfortable pressing into his back. He really missed his four-poster bed back in Gryffindor. He would quite like to try the bed upstairs properly too if he was going to be here for any length of time. Harry gingerly felt at his nose, definitely broken. He stretched out on the floor like a cat, and rolled to the side to dislodge the weight on his shoulder blades. Riddle rolled into view next to him, Harry saw him lowering his feet to the ground and dropping a book to his lap.

"You were using me as a footrest?" Harry asked, indignant. "You could have just woken me up, you know. Or conjured a footrest!"

"Episkey." ("Ouch!") "I could have done, of course. But where would the fun be in that? This way I know exactly when you wake up. I would have noticed if you had begun to choke on that nosebleed you had as well. So really, I won most ways by doing as I did. Not to mention it feels quite good to have someone under my heel again."

Harry sat up on the floor, feeling his newly-fixed nose. Too preoccupied to glare. "It's not squint, is it?"

"I didn't know you were that vain Harry Potter."

"I'm not." Harry said "I just don't want to end up with a nose like Dumbledore or Snape."

Harry stood up and took a few cautious steps around the kitchen. He grimaced as he felt his feet stick to the floor. His legs were all slimy with dried snake spit. He walked towards the door

"Where do you think you are going?" Tom called from his chair, not bothering to stand up. Harry stopped where he was in the doorway.

"To have a shower. I feel gross."

Tom frowned, "You should ask me first, you know."

"You want me to come find you every time I have to shower?" Harry gaped.

"No, I _want_ you to ask for permission before leaving my presence, especially when we are in the middle of a lesson."

"How were we 'in the middle of a lesson'? I've been unconscious for Merlin knows how long and you were reading a book!"

"That is part of the lesson," Riddle said, "Are you going to ask or are you waiting for your toenails to dissolve to a sensible length?"

Harry looked down. Sure enough, his nails _did_ look significantly shorter…

"Can I go have a shower then?"

Tom raised his eyebrows. Damn, not good enough then.

"Please, may I go and have a shower." Tom supplied. Harry was tempted to give a smart answer but knew that would be going too far by a half.

"Please, may I go and have a shower?" Harry ground out.

"You may. And change your clothes, those ones are filthy."

"I don't have any other clothes."

Tom looked surprised, "I supplied you with clothes. They are in the dresser."

Harry blushed red and mumbled something. Tom shot him with a stinging hex. "Speak up!"

"You banished the handles. I can't get into them."

Tom rolled his eyes. He summoned a teaspoon from a drawer and transfigured it into a door handle. Then he used some sort of duplication charm on it so that there were eight. Harry took them from him and left the kitchen, shouting a brief 'thanks' over his shoulder.

Not particularly feeling like being cursed after the day he had had, Harry didn't bother to try any of the warded shut doors this time. He also didn't want to come across Nagini and he didn't know where she spent all her time.

The first thing Harry did back in his room was to open all of the drawers and look at what was inside. It looked like Tom was determined to dress Harry as Sammy Slytherin. The clothing was all wizarding, of course, from the self-pulling-up socks (black) to the emerald robes with silver fastenings. Harry suspected that there would be a hat too if he looked hard enough. There was even a set of self-folding handkerchiefs, silver cloth of course.

The bedroom door opened and Harry jumped. Tom was standing there, faintly amused.

"I was thinking of the other objects I banished after yesterday's colour-fest. I decided that I could manage to give you another towel, if only so that you don't drip all down the stairs."

"Thank you," Harry offered warily. "I don't suppose there's any chance you're going to give me another pillow is there? Or shoes?"

"Ah, you are quite right!" Harry was surprised, he didn't think it would be that easy. "Not a chance."

Harry rolled his eyes. Tom really was infuriating sometimes.

"There is shampoo and shower gel in the bathroom now, I suggest you use it. And I want you to be downstairs in half an hour for dinner, the water will go cold in 10 minutes so you may wish to be quick." said Tom

Scratch that last, Tom was always infuriating. "I will, thanks."

Tom left and Harry was able to enjoy his shower and clean clothes.

Harry looked in the mirror. These were probably the nicest clothes he had ever worn. Miles better than any of Dudley's cast offs, and definitely better quality than his school robes were. Harry pulled a face at his reflection, he had been right before though; he did look like a Slytherin poster boy. This was probably how Malfoy dressed in the holidays. Harry had a funny feeling that the animated snakes on the walls were admiring his new look. Deciding that he probably didn't want to be late downstairs, Harry left.

A/N Thanks to everyone that's read everything so far! I'm really enjoying writing this. If you have any comments then please review. I'd love to hear what you think.


	4. Philosophy, Politics and Reading

Chapter Four

Philosophy and Politics and Reading

Tom had cooked again. Harry looked doubtfully at the plate in front of him.

"What is it?" he asked. Poking it gently with his fork to see if it was going to move by itself.

"Calamari," Tom replied. "Squid to you, you uncultured nitwit."

"Oh, ok" Harry picked up a small piece on his fork and raised it to his mouth, only to have it disappear before it got there. "What?"

"I told you earlier that I will not be tolerant of your poor manners. At least hold your fork in the other hand!"

Harry ducked his head. "Sorry, people normally don't care how I eat. The Dursley's don't use much cutlery."

"What do you expect from muggles? Miss Weasley told me that they kept you chained up over the summer, they wanted to stop you from going back to school. They should have had nothing to do with the magical world. Wizards should keep to wizards and muggles to muggles."

"There are plenty of pureblood wizards that don't eat tidily (Ron). Those muggles are my family. And I wasn't 'chained up' they just shut me in my room, they didn't want me to go to Hogwarts anyway. And if I was back there then I wouldn't have gotten myself kidnapped by Voldemort."

Tom snorted, "This is the kindest kidnapping I've ever committed. Some of that has to do with the resources available though. This house doesn't exactly have a dungeon." Tom looked a little confused "I don't see why the old fool sent you to live with them anyway."

Harry wasn't impressed by the 'kind kidnapping' but wasn't about to give Tom any excuse to make it worse.

"They're the only family I have left. Dumbledore said something last year about my mother leaving protection from Him by sacrificing herself for me. I think that had something to do with the Dursley's"

"Ah, blood wards then. You lived with your mudblood mother's sister."

"Should I be worried that you know that much about my aunt?" Harry asked, already nervous.

"I shouldn't expect so." Tom shrugged. "I'm not going to just go out and hunt down random muggles. What would be the point in that?"

"I thought that was pretty much exactly what you did."

"No," Tom looked scandalised. "Well_ I_ didn't plan on that anyway. I'm not sure exactly what Voldemort got up to while I was out. It's been tricky trying to get caught up."

Harry could sympathise with that. He had entered the magical world without a clue of his famous past. It had to be pretty much the same for Riddle on the other side finding out about his infamous future self.

"Hey Tom, I've been thinking!" Harry ignored the smirk on the boy's face, continuing quickly to avoid extraneous insult. "I keep getting muddled by calling you and Him Voldemort at the same time. Maybe you should pick a new name. Like Volt Doodler. Then you could still do that cool anagram thing to freak people out. Like 'I am Mr Volt Doodler'."

"I could if I wanted to sound like a complete idiot. Voldemort inspired fear in the hearts of thousands! A Mister Doodler would get laughed at by toddlers and incompetents."

Harry thought that was a little pessimistic but could understand where Tom was coming from. He ate some more of his squid, it was…crispy. Not terrible but unlike anything he had eaten before.

"So why don't you like muggles?" Harry asked.

"I don't dislike them particularly. I just think they're a bit like intelligent apes. They are not anywhere near a match for wizards."

"That's not fair," Harry said "They aren't animals, Tom. They're just as intelligent as us, just as kind as us and just as powerful in their own way. And there's so many more of them than there are of us."

"That's exactly my point Harry Potter. It is not the muggles that should worry us, it is the muggleborns! There are about a hundred thousand magical people in Britain. That means seven hundred muggles to every wizard. We are safe from a full out war only because largely the muggle world is not aware of our existence. Every new mudblood born means a new family is aware of our world. "

Harry's mind reeled. Where there really so few wizards? He supposed that there were about six hundred pupils at Hogwarts and Ron and Hermione had a conversation once about other British schools apparently there were a few smaller schools in the rest of the UK as well.

"But anyone with magical blood, even muggleborns, are more likely to have magical children, right? So there has to be more magical people altogether."

"We are never going to be able to match their numbers though," Tom grimaced. "They will always be a threat to us."

"So what is it you want to do? Kill every muggleborn or just steal them from their parents?"

"Either of those is fine. It would be better to raise them in the wizarding world though."

Harry didn't think Hermione would agree- thinking of Hermione hurt though, he didn't know if she had recovered. Harry knew that she was happy at home though, well mostly. She had told them that she was bullied a bit by her old friends. They thought she was away at some posh boarding school, with a scholarship. They called her 'high and mighty' for not going to the same school as all of them. But Hermione did love her parents, and they did their best to understand.

"Potter, what do you think would happen if the muggles knew about magic?"

Harry looked up at him, "I dunno. Probably just about the same as if wizards discovered the infinite wonders of the internet. Everyone would freak out for a while. Then they'd try to use it to solve all of their problems. They would all get lazy and addicted to the wrong things. Then they would just get used to it as a part of their lives."

"That's quite close to what I thought, apart from the last." Tom said. "I think the muggles would be scared to begin with but would turn violent. It's what they do after all. Again and again. They get frightened by a little flash and bang, and then they start wars. And they could wipe us out, Harry Potter."

"Nobody else seems to think anything would happen. The Ministry of Magic has laws that stop too many people from knowing. And if we had to then wizards could always go into hiding. Or we could move somewhere and keep muggles out." Harry's head hurt from thinking about this. Hermione would be a lot better at this. Even Ron would know what to say. Harry had about two years' combined experience of the wizarding world. It wasn't enough for this conversation.

"Why do you always call me by my full name?" Harry asked suddenly. "You sound like a centaur like that, and predicting war like them too! It feels like you're going to tell me 'mars is bright tonight'."

Tom looked surprised by the non sequiter but answered anyway, "Would you prefer Potter? I was trying to be an example of politeness. But if you prefer the mendacity you so frequently employ, then I'm sure I could oblige you occasionally."

Harry tried to work out what Tom had meant by that and spent a good minute (yet again) trying to figure out if he had been insulted or not.

Tom was frowning at the table. He looked like he wanted to ask something but wasn't sure how to ask. He reminded Harry of someone else. Harry laughed, Tom was the spitting image of Seamus when he was asking Dean about football. Tom looked up at that, catching Harry's eye.

"What exactly are the 'Infinite Wonders of the Internet'?"

Tom looked more and more confused as Harry tried to explain computers to him. He was getting the impression that Tom thought the internet was a box of parchment run by lightening with all of the information passing through metal pipes as noises. Harry did his best but he was reaching the extent of his knowledge – he had last used a computer at his primary school and he had only spent any time on three websites (two of which had been maths games, the other Google). He eventually gave up when Riddle asked how one used many computers in one room if they were all making different noises at once.

Riddle made Harry tidy up the dishes. It was likely some sort of revenge for Harry crying with mirth at Riddles supposition that the internet was used for necessities and education. Harry had said, through tears, that it was actually mostly pictures of cats and illegal movies.

The squid pan was disgusting though. It was full of oil and Harry had to tip the rancid stuff into a jar because Tom was sulking too much to help him.

Tom decided that the evening would be the best time to begin teaching Harry parselscript. Harry disagreed but a dangerous glance from Tom made him reconsider making a stand about this. Harry was saving his courage to make a fuss about the Seasickness range of clothing he was being forced to model.

They sat down next to each other at the table instead of across, like they usually did. Tom produced parchment and a quill and wrote out what he said was an alphabet but actually looked mostly the same to Harry. Tom then took another sheet and wrote what, logically, must have been a sentence.

"Can you read this?"

"Does it say; 'Harry Potter is a complete nitwit who can't follow the simplest of instructions'?" Harry asked in his best Riddle impression (he had practiced). "That's what Snape would have written."

"You are surprisingly close but I suspect that is not through your own merit." Tom passed him some lined parchment, "Here, try writing out the letters again. They will begin to make sense to you. I think that even a non-parselmouth can learn to translate script, given enough time. They cannot read it aloud, of course. Any spells and rituals in parselscript cannot be read aloud by ordinary people."

Harry started to copy out the letters but he couldn't keep them separate and Tom kept pushing his hand away to fix the shape of letters

"Apparently your handwriting is atrocious independently of the alphabet you are using."

This was more torturous than learning English at primary school. At least then they were told what was happening with the letters. Harry made Tom repeat the sounds the letters made individually but whenever Harry tried to spell out the word, he heard it like English in his head. It was really difficult to try to separate the hissing noise from the words. Harry learned that parseltongue had different grammar and syntax than English. Also that some words didn't exist- hence Tom calling Harry 'Boy' when speaking to Nagini.

They made very little progress on the reading and writing. Harry just found it too had to split the sounds apart to assign to letters before making whole words again. Tom changed tack slightly and began to show his pupil small words in parseltongue next to their English translation. This seemed to help a little but Harry wasn't learning how to do it but rather memorising the shapes of those words that Tom had written. It was like knowing what a meringue should look like but not having a recipe book or knowing how much of each ingredient should go in.

On the other hand the bruise on Harry's right arm was coming along beautifully. Every time Harry missed out a step Tom would flick his hand somewhere against the arm closest to him.

What felt like an incredibly long time after they had started, Tom let out a long sigh and pinched his nose between his fingers, he had been doing that a lot recently. Harry shook his head of his sleepiness and tried to focus on what Riddle was saying.

"I suppose you can go to bed now. It's probably about time you slept. I need to brew some potions tomorrow so you might as well help me. Hopefully you're not at awful at that."

Harry, wasn't sure that his potion making was going to be up to Tom's standards- he wasn't sure he was ever going to do anything to meet Tom's standards actually. But he got up thankfully and left the warm kitchen, "Goodnight Tom".

The house felt quieter than usual which was strange since Harry didn't normally associate any noise with being there. The whole place was darker though, the contained candles on the wall dimmed. Harry's room itself was pitch black- he still had no idea how to control the lights in here.

Harry remembered taking one look at the pyjamas earlier before deciding to sleep in his boxers. They were truly horrendous; a sickly green quilted effect that was probably supposed to look like scales. Harry climbed into bed, sending up one final hope that his friends were safe at Hogwarts and that Professor Dumbledore or somebody was looking for him. He played a little with the thought of Ron and his twin brothers trying to break into this house with a hairpin and a flying car. He tried to imagine the rest of the Weasleys coming too. Mrs Weasley with her enormous frying pan and Mr Weasley with a rubber duck. He drifted peacefully off to sleep…

A/N - Hi, everyone! I'm sorry that such a lot of this chapter is politics but I wanted to give you a bit of an idea of what Tom's plans are, or at least his ideals. The next chapter's going to be a bit more about Harry trying to deal with everything Tom keeps throwing at him.

Also, just to clarify, a lot of this story is going to be about the relationship between Tom and Harry and how they begin to influence each other. There won't be slash at any point.

Thanks for reading


	5. Nightmares

(From chapter 4.

He drifted peacefully off to sleep…)

Chapter Five

Nightmares

…and awoke screaming.

Snakes. Why had he ever liked snakes? Big, horrible slimy things which attacked you for no reason. Why couldn't they just mind their own business? And did they really have to not only be big enough to eat you; but also have so many ways to kill you? With their venom and fangs and eyes that can kill you. Harry noticed that tears were rolling down his cheeks. That was new, he hadn't cried at anything in ages.

The door opened quietly. There was a light in the hallway so Harry was able to see the long, thick creature glide into the room. All thoughts went out of Harry's head, leaving the fear behind. This was a deadly snake, it could kill him however it wanted. He couldn't look at it, he would die.

Harry flinched back and huddled against the wall, eyes closed. He could hear it coming closer, there was nowhere to run to. He screamed again.

Suddenly the room was full of light. Harry kept his eyes closed, breathing heavily. Pressing back against the wall. There were no phoenixes this time.

Harry held his hands over his eyes and tried to peer out at the wall next to him. Maybe he could see the shadows of the snake, then maybe he could try to get away when it came for him. Oh god, now there was snakes on the walls. He couldn't get away, he was surrounded where he was. Harry decided to try to leap for the door. If he could make it past the enormous snake then he could shut it in; that was hoping that there were no more behind it. Where was accidental magic when you needed it?

So Harry got up onto his feet and prepared to take the biggest leap he could. He took a step back, then two bouncing leaps in the direction he hoped the door was.

He didn't land.

Instead he felt the slightly nauseating, spinning feeling that one experiences under a levitation charm. This was too much for Harry to handle and he vomited onto the floor. Harry could feel the air rushing past him as he imagined his captor was moving him.

Suddenly he was drenched in freezing cold water. He felt like he woke up again then, although he had been awake before.

Harry coughed and spluttered to try and clear the water out of his lungs. He opened his eyes and immediately dumped onto the floor of the shower. Harry looked up to see Tom standing there in a black, fluffy dressing gown.

"Thanks, I think."

Tom shook his head. "I don't appreciate my prisoners torturing themselves, even if it saves me the trouble. What happened to make you start that horrendous banshee impression at such a ridiculous hour?"

"I had a nightmare." Harry shivered. Both due to the memory of his fading panic and the fact that he was sitting in a puddle of cold water.

"Oddly enough I worked that part out." Tom conjured a dressing gown out of thin air and dropped it on Harry's head. The boy took it gratefully and stood up. "Did you realise you were screaming in parseltongue?"

Harry froze, "Was I? Did I say anything?"

"Do you mean other than gibbering about snakes and poison. And you had a few choice words for the failings of accidental magic as well. That was before you took that insane leap and I had to stop you from splattering yourself on the ceiling above the door. "

Harry cringed, Tom pretty much knew everything. Now he was bound to use it against him sometime. That was what he did, collected peoples weaknesses and strengths so he could work out how to use them to the best advantage.

"Would you like some tea?"

"Tea?"

"Yes, tea." Tom said, "That hot, wet stuff people drink to calm down and stay awake."

"Tea would be good" Harry said cautiously.

Tom led the way downstairs. Harry could see no sign of Nagini and there was a strange smell of burning that Harry couldn't place. Harry sat down while Riddle made tea and collected milk and sugar from the cupboards.

Five minutes later they were sitting in their usual seats in silence, hands cupped around large mugs of very sweet, very milky tea.

"How can you possibly be frightened of snakes?" Tom suddenly demanded, "You can control them for Merlin's sake. If there's one thing you should feel comfortable around, it's snakes. Why aren't you frightened of acromantula or blast-ended-skrewts or manticore?"

"I can't control snakes! They never do what I say. Mostly they just try to kill me."

"That's the problem with having such a Gryffindor trying to control a serpent. You don't use enough authority. Of course they are going to try to kill you if they think they are in control. That is what they do. Slytherins understand that, that is why they go together so well."

"I could have been a Slytherin though." Harry protested.

"Could you, really? That is odd. The hat told you that?"

Harry nodded, "In first year, then I tried it on again earlier this year in Dumbledore's office and it said the same thing."

Tom frowned, "I cannot think of anyone that is more Gryffindor than you. Maybe that is another thing I passed on to you. You don't seem to display it much anyway. I wonder…" he stopped short.

"Wonder what?" Harry asked.

"None of your business." Tom snapped, "It might have something to do with what I've been researching though."

Harry remembered something from the previous night. "Why are you still using my wand?"

"What do you mean?" Tom asked, "Which wand should I be using?"

Harry tilted his head to the side to consider Riddle for a moment. "I don't know, I thought I saw you with another one sometime. You had my wand and another at the same time"

"Where was this?" Tom sounded angry now.

Harry couldn't remember that he just remembered Tom holding both. "I can't remember. I know you had mine in your hand. Then you picked the other one up from underneath something."

"Under what?" Tom lunged across the table and pulled Harry towards him by the front of his gown.

"I don't know! A cupboard I think" Harry said quickly. The oddest thought passed through his head; this was not a good way to deal with someone in shock. Seeing Tom's long fingers reaching for him brought it back to him though. Harry swallowed audibly. "Under a cot. It _was_ your wand wasn't it? You went to my old house to get it back. That was **my** cot."

Tom sat back down with his head in his hands. "Well, that solves one mystery but opens up a dozen more... I didn't go back anyway. I've never been there. It was Voldemort that killed your parents."

Harry wasn't listening though. "You are Voldemort! I bet you would have done it if you had still been him anyway." A thought occurred to him, "All those burn marks… That house was totally destroyed, my Mum and Dad died there…"

"Potter, stop daydreaming!"

"What?" Harry shook his head. "Why did I see that? I don't understand. Did you take me with you? You haven't been possessing me have you?" That was a scary thought. Ginny didn't know what she was doing when Tom took control. "But it wasn't just me, I _saw_ you doing it. I don't even know how long I've been here. It could be past Halloween for all I know!"

Tom was looking his infuriatingly calm self again, waiting for Harry to stop spouting every tiny thought that was passing through his brain.

"Potter, I haven't been possessing you and you haven't left this house since I brought you here. It occasionally happens. While I was trapped in that diary I occasionally saw flashes of what Voldemort was doing out in the world."

"But that's got to be because you're a bit of his soul! I'm not a part of him, I'm just Harry."

Tom didn't respond, for a while he seemed to be lost in thought. When he finally spoke, it was with a lot more hesitation than usual.

"_But you are not_ 'just Harry' _are you little one?" _ Harry flinched at the sudden switch to parseltongue. _"You have inherited some of Lord Voldemort's powers. How do you think you managed to do that? Nobody has done that before. All of his Horcruxes have his powers though. They can do all of these things. You can do them too."_

"You think I'm a what?!"

"A horcrux. They are the dark magic objects I informed you of the other day. My diary was one, there are others. Strong magical objects which have been imbued with a section of my soul."

"But I can't be!" Harry shouted. "That's so disgusting. You think I have a bit of his soul inside me? How do you know, are you sure you're right?"

"I'm not completely certain. About 70% sure. From what I've been able to gather from the previous spells on that wand and the bits of that night I witnessed; Voldemort was preparing to make another, final horcrux from the dark energy created from your murder. What I think happened was that he still split his soul. Unintentionally this time, so he was unable to take the final step; to trap the fragment in an object. Then that piece latched onto you. I've never known there to be a living horcrux, even having more than one horcrux was never thought to be possible before- I have my own suspicions about Herpo the Foul."

Harry blinked, "That is completely gross. Can I get rid of it?"

"That's my soul you are talking about, watch your mouth." Tom smirked. "The only way to destroy the soul is to destroy the object. I'm not sure how happy you would be about that. There is a way to re-join some fragments but I do not think you would survive that procedure either. Of course you could try making a bargain with a dementor but I wouldn't trust one personally."

"What about the rest of them- the Horcruxes- what happens to them, where are they?"

"They're hidden," Tom said. "I don't know where exactly. All I know is what I was planning to make, and where I would hide things if I had to. He might have changed his mind after he created me. I'm a Slytherin and I might have changed my mind _because_ I created me."

"That was the most confusing thing I've ever heard and Percy Weasley tried to teach me arithmancy last year."

"Arithmancy is useful, you're going to learn some."

"Are you ever going to decide if you plan on killing me or not. Quit leaving me hanging."

Tom grinned "Alright then, I'll kill you next week."

Harry started, "What, seriously? Should you really tell me that? I thought this was supposed to help me sleep after my nightmares. You are terrible at being comforting."

Tom looed put out, "This is where you are supposed to start begging for your life. It's not fun if you don't make a fuss."

"I'll make a fuss when we get to it, don't worry about that. " Harry said, "If you're going to kill me then can we stop with the lessons?"

"No," said Tom, "They amuse me."

Great, Harry wasn't sure if Tom was serious with this threat but he suspected that Tom did enjoy teaching, even if Harry wasn't a particularly quick learner.

Something moved on the floor.

"Tom, please get rid of it. I can't deal with this."

Tom looked unhappy but did get up and speak quietly to the snake, who left the room in a huff, loudly bashing off the walls on her way out.

"Go back to bed Potter, you're exhausted."

Harry really didn't want to deal with the snakes in his room or those in his head.

"It's a good thing you don't know any state secrets Potter, you would give them away to the first Legilimens that surprised you with a question. The snakes on your wallpaper are gone. You burned the patch of wallpaper they were on and they won't appear again. I do not have any dreamless sleep but you can brew some tomorrow if you think you can manage it without poisoning yourself. Tonight I am going to stupefy you, I do not want to be woken up by your high pitched wailing again."

"What about Nagini?"

"I will ward your door when I leave so that she cannot cross the threshold."

Harry felt oddly comforted by their conversation. He probably shouldn't have been, stupefaction hurt like anything, but he was. It almost felt a little like Tom cared how well he slept.

Of course that vanished a split second later with Tom raising his wand to point at the centre of Harry's forehead, right at his scar. The last thing Harry knew was Tom gesturing precisely and pain as he fell backwards.

Then nothing.


	6. Potions

Chapter 6

Potions

Harry was woken surprisingly gently in the morning by a cheerful Tom. Well, Harry did wake up, but only for a moment. He was so tired from the night before that he half-mumbled something, thought about stretching but didn't. Then simply rolled over to face the wall and fell back asleep.

For all of three seconds.

Tom, still smiling, cast an Aguamenti charm to totally drench the boy. It was so forceful that Harry had trouble pushing against it to emerge, dripping on the floor at Tom's feet.

"I do miss this sometimes, this was the most enjoyable part of being a prefect." Tom sounded nostalgic. The boy coughed loudly to try and clear some of the water from his lungs. Tom frowned for a moment as Harry reached up and pulled himself to his feet using Tom's arm as leverage.

"If you were one of my followers I expect I would have had to kill you by now... you are truly awful at showing the proper respect to your betters."

"Good morning to you too, Doodler."

Tom looked confused before remembering their conversation from before. He growled and aimed a cuff Harry's way. The boy ducked, only to get hit in the shoulder instead by a stinging hex. Harry looked down to see the damage but his eyes met a horrible scaly pattern instead. He was wearing those awful pyjamas!

"Ugh, these are so gross! I mean, I look like some sort of deformed ghekko. Wait, did you change me? That's really weird."

Tom rolled his eyes at the boy. "I used a spell, idiot. I learned it on a first aid course for duelling club in my fourth year. I have no interest in pre-pubescent, skinny boys. And there is nothing wrong with those clothes, I bought them from a very reputable shop in Knockturn Alley."

"I didn't think there were any reputable shops down there" said Harry, rubbing his shoulder.

"Some of those shops have a very strong reputation, it is just that the reputation is not normally positive"

"That's hilarious," Harry growled, "but I'd like my own clothes back, thanks."

"You can't have them," Riddle smiled "I burned them a while ago. I'm afraid you are stuck with these for now."

Harry considered refusing for a second but knew that Tom would make it far worse if he wanted to.

"Be down in fifteen minutes"

"Tom, what about…" Nagini; Harry didn't want to meet her.

Tom understood, "She will not be downstairs." He turned and left.

Harry collected some of the green clothes and went to warm up in the shower. Why did he always seem to wind up soaked to the skin every time Tom came in here?

Breakfast was porridge for Harry and some sort of fried mushroom thing for Tom. Harry would have complained about being excluded but he wasn't fond of mushrooms and the porridge was third only to Mrs Weasley and Hogwarts. Harry passed on a compliment about it but Tom just glared and told him to eat faster and stop talking.

Tom led the way through to the other door on the ground floor. Harry was really eager to see inside since he had only seen two rooms and the staircase and he was bored of all three by now. It took Tom three spells to take down the wards, and Harry could feel the door was heavier when Tom passed it to him.

The room was already lit up by a bright light in one corner. That lit up a small patch of plants. Some Harry recognised from the school greenhouses and others he was sure he had seen in the garden at 4 Privet Drive. There was even a patch of nettles, those would have never dared to grow under Aunt Petunia's watchful glare. Nettles were far too wussy to survive in the school greenhouses, of course.

"It's a Sun spell. Third year Charms and fourth year Herbology. You probably know the incantation already. You learn how to sustain the spell and later, in Herbology, you combine it with a patch of Shimmering Sundews. The Sundew keeps the light which allows the other plants to grow. They also keep down the levels of flies and spiders."

The rest of the room was more like the potions laboratory at Hogwarts. There were four wooden benches, scratched from use. Stacks of cauldrons were lined along one wall, more than Harry would have expected for such a small house. There were storage cupboards on the opposite wall, the doors all shut. A cabinet of ready-made potions and a bookcase of recipes made up the wall beside the door.

Harry sat down on a stool as Tom explained the potions he was planning on making today. He was going to make an Anti-Paralysis Potion to use the next time Nagini paralysed somebody Tom didn't want her to (he said that like it was a cute quirk she had).

Tom was also going to begin brewing Essence of Dittany, a wound healing potion which could stop severe bleeding and close wounds but took the precise addition of ingredients over a fortnight before it was ready to be bottled. It also had to sit for two months before it could be fully effective. Tom wouldn't tell Harry what he was doing with the third potion but Harry would swear he saw the teenager add an eyeball whose pupil contracted like it was afraid as it was dropped in. He made a promise to himself that he would not drink that under any circumstances. Not even if it was worse than paralysis or severe bleeding.

Tom had all three cauldrons on the go at once and was almost as quick as Snape at preparing ingredients and adding them at the right time. He only had instructions for two of them- the Dittany and the Anti-Paralysis but he seemed to know exactly what he was doing with all three.

"Why are you so good at potions?" Harry finally asked.

"I was 'so good' at all of my school subjects Potter." Tom said, "But truthfully I tried harder with my potions. I had to impress my head of house before I could become anyone of importance. I had no connections before entering Slytherin and family is very important to my house."

"But you're the heir of Slytherin, how can you not have a family?"

"Slytherin lived over a thousand years ago Potter. There is no truly direct line from him. I am the last though, through my mother's family. Unfortunately I was unaware of that fact until I reached sixteen. As it was I grew up in a muggle orphanage, with no money or possessions. Having nothing like that meant that it was necessary to impress my peers and teachers quickly, and I did impress them all."

"Except Dumbledore." Harry grinned.

Tom looked up briefly from chopping his Horklump gills for the middle cauldron which was simmering at a light blue.

"I did make an impression on the old man, which was why he kept such a consistent watch on me for so long. I have probably made a bigger impression on him than anybody else."

Harry felt slightly disappointed that this hadn't got a rise out of Riddle for the comment. Normally Tom was reliably annoyed by any mention of Professor Dumbledore. He didn't know why he wanted to annoy him, it was an incredibly stupid thing to want and he imagined Hermione's voice in the back of his head, shouting at him for being an idiot.

"If you feel like you have analysed our conversation enough for the moment then I suggest you make a start on that potion you want. If you do not complete it by the time I am done then you will not have access to it. I might not brew like this for some time so if you must, brew a double batch."

"There is a book of household potions on the shelf and all of the ingredients you will need are in the storage cupboard. If you cannot recognise what you need, then ask. If you get annoying or in the way, and especially if you blow anything up, I will stick you to the ceiling somewhere I can keep an eye on you."

Harry felt like he would like to analyse the previous subject even more, but he believed Tom would follow through with his threat, so he went to look for the right book.

He found the recipe for Dreamless Sleep on page 23 of _"Healing Potions for Heady Brewers"_ a thick book which looked like it might have been used once about forty years ago.

Tom's ingredient store was a lot smaller and differently organised to Snape's. Harry collected everything he thought was right and piled it on the workbench he was going to use. It looked a lot more difficult than anything they had covered this year and none of _those_ potions had been spectacular. He asked Tom to check he had the right things since he was pretty nervous about having to actually drink the potion afterwards. Already looking slightly harassed by the interruption, Tom glanced across and told harry to find the leeches pickled in brine rather than vinegar, the beetles would be more effective if he found the brownest ones and that he should look for a smaller, bronze cauldron to brew with.

Harry made all of those changes quickly and began to prepare his ingredients while the water boiled up.

Harry almost had a disaster on the fourth step – adding the leeches – because he tried to drop them all in at once. Instead of the explosion which should have happened, the leeches bounced off an invisible cover, over the lip of the cauldron. Harry experienced a very well-aimed knee-reversal hex which he had to spend two minutes undoing. By the time it had worn off, the purple had progressed to the green it was supposed to be at this stage and Harry entered the leeches sheepishly.

Harry thought he did quite a good job of the potion, seeing as he had never studied it before. Potions seemed to be a lot easier to make when he didn't have Snape breathing down his neck. Or the Slytherins throwing insults and random ingredients from the other side of the room. The Dreamless Sleep potion was a deep purple as described by the book but it also contained some orange flakes which weren't mentioned. Harry wondered if he could filter the potion without Tom noticing but Riddle, who had just finished dealing with the Anti-Paralysis potion, saw he was done and had cast a stasis charm on the unknown potion.

Tom looked doubtfully at the purple potion in front of Harry.

"I don't think it will kill you," Tom said "but you might want to start off with a half dose to begin with."

Tom pointed out where the vials could be found and Harry began to fill them carefully. Tom went back to his potions. When he was done bottling and labelling the purple draught, Harry went back to his stool and watched Tom brewing.

It was actually quite interesting to watch someone who knew so much about brewing at work. Snape obviously enjoyed brewing more but Tom looked more at ease. Harry wondered what would have happened if Voldemort had decided to become a potions teacher instead of ruling the world.

Tom seemed to understand what he was thinking about, in that uncanny way he had. "I did want to become Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher you know. I applied after I left school." Harry nodded, "Dumbledore had just become headmaster, and he didn't trust me in the position. So after that, I put a curse on the position. A logical response, don't you think? If he had been able to employ anybody more suitable than I, then they would have been able to break the curse. Do you want to know the secret to the curse?"

Harry nodded again, curious.

"Whoever holds the DADA teaching position has to have never been tempted by the dark arts. They can't have ever performed an unforgivable curse, or any of the more destructive mental spells. They can't be a half-bred teacher either. Can you imagine having a Vampire or Veela or a Werewolf to teaching that class? They would have to instruct the students in their own destruction. From what I have gathered, nobody so far has fulfilled those requirements. Nobody has been able to break that curse either, I would like to point out and it has been over fifty years. No wonder Dumbledore is having difficulties filling the position, about a fifth of the professors have died."

Tom looked worryingly gleeful over this and Harry was reminded that the boy was never completely sane. Sometimes it was easy to forget that, but it never lasted long. Soon enough Harry was always peeling himself back up off the floor after being flattened.

Tom gave the unknown potion one more (clockwise) stir before removing the stirring rod and placing it on the desk.

"Right," Tom said, picking up a particularly sharp looking golden bladed knife from his rack of equipment. "I'm going to be needing quite a lot of your blood."


	7. No Trust

Chapter Seven

"You want my what? Why? You can't have it. I need it. Why can't you use your own blood if it's so important?" Harry panicked, and rambled, backing slowly away from Riddle who had him frozen on his feet in an instant.

"Ah, Harry. You should know by now that I will get what I want from you." Riddle stopped right in front of Harry. "I need your blood, quite a lot of it. I need it for the potion to work properly and you don't need all of it. I will give you a blood replenishing potion as soon as I have closed your wound. I am going to be using my own blood in the potion as well."

Tom dragged Harry's frozen body over to the cauldron. He cut across the child's left palm and waited for enough blood to flow down over Harry's fingers, into the potion. When he was happy, Tom conjured bandages and bound the wound before pushing the boy into a stool, unfreezing him, and passing him a vial of mixed blood replenishing potion and calming draught for the shock of the blood loss.

Harry didn't even notice Tom pick up the knife again, but he did hear the sharp intake of breath when he made the cut. A minute later Tom was leaning against the bench and downing his own potion mix.

"Well, let's hope it actually works." Tom said brightly. Harry sent him a death glare.

"You mean it might not? We don't have to do it again if it doesn't, do we?"

"We shouldn't," Tom said, "If it does not work then we know that you are not compatible and I will need to find another way of getting what I want."

"What do you want this time?" Harry asked.

Tom thought for a minute. "I'll tell you if you cook something decent for lunch."

Harry was surprised by the bargaining, normally when Tom wanted something doing he just ordered it done. This prospect of a reward was entirely new. "Ok," he said cautiously, "I'll need to see what you've got. What time do you want lunch?"

Tom smiled, Harry had been trying to make him let slip the time for about a day (to Harry). It hadn't worked yet. "About an hour should do it." He transfigured a glass vial with a lump of rock in it into an hourglass, complete with sand.

Harry boggled at the sight. He hadn't seen anyone apart from Dumbledore and McGonagall perform such complicated transfigurations, and even they would have used an incantation.

"Potter," Riddle sighed, "As flattered as I am by the look on your face, I am rather hungry. If you could make a start on lunch sometime today, that would be helpful. I am quite happy to have you marvel at my far superior skills after I have eaten."

Harry just nodded, picked up the hourglass and went back through to the kitchen. Tom watched the door as he left, then as he heard the boy's feet on the wood floor of the kitchen crept forward to check the revealing charm on the door.

The boy hadn't stolen any ingredients or potions, well except for one twentieth of an ounce of bowtruckle spines which he appeared to be taking on the sleeve of his robe. Only Tom had gone into the cupboard which contained those ingredients so it was most likely that he had transferred them to the boy when pulling him. Added to that was the fact that bowtruckle spines could do absolutely no harm to anyone without being mixed with aconite. The boy was unlikely to be cooking with _that_.

In the kitchen Harry was hunting through cupboards. Only a couple were locked, Harry suspected one had to contain cleaning supplies because there was a distinct lack of those. He was surprised by how well the kitchen was stocked since he was fairly certain Tom hadn't left in a while. There was fresh milk in the cold cupboard and happy looking vegetables which couldn't have been more than a couple of days old. Harry grinned at the mental image of Tom shopping in a supermarket somewhere- having to decline vouchers and loyalty cards and put up with small children.

Knowing that Tom always seemed to cook quite extravagant meals, Harry decided to make a pastry tart with a side salad. It took a while of shouting synonyms at the oven (warmer, on, work, operate, heat up!) before Tom stuck his head into the room, and turned it on with a smirk and wave of his wand. Harry glared at him until he retreated.

It didn't take very long to cook and Harry was finished before half of the sand had fallen. Tom appeared so quickly that Harry wondered if he had been sitting right outside the door.

The meal was quiet, mostly because Tom was eating ravenously and Harry was both slightly proud of his cooking and relieved that he wasn't being forced to sit up properly. Part of him had expected Tom to deny him the meal because he had made it. Harry frowned, Tom was definitely hungrier than he had been before. He got up and brought him the spare tart he had wrapped up and placed in the fridge after making far too much pastry.

When they had both finished eating, Harry leant forwards and asked all the questions he had been dying to ask Tom.

"So what was the potion?"

"It is called a triangulation potion."

"Come, on you have to tell me more than that." Harry huffed, disappointed. "What does it do? Why did you need my blood?"

Tom smiled at his impatience. "I don't actually have to tell you anything…"

"I know," Harry interrupted, dodging some blood-orange coloured curse for his effort, "But you said you might and I want to 'marvel at your skills' or whatever."

"Oh good," Tom said. "And here I was thinking you were _trying_ to irritate me." He relented a little, "The potion is used in conjunction with a spell in order to find objects which are most in common between the two subjects. In our case, if I am right and you do contain a piece of my soul, then the objects I will be finding will be the other pieces of soul."

"So what if you're wrong?"

"If I am wrong then we can be fairly certain that we are not connected like that. The spells will probably lead to the diary, the mirror of Erised, your mother's grave and the house at Godric's Hollow."

Harry was surprised that they had so many connections to each other. "What are you going to do when you find the things?"

"That will have to wait until I am in possession of them."

"How are you going to find them if this doesn't work?

"I can't tell you that Harry." Tom said, smiling again. "It wouldn't do to pass on all of my secrets just yet. Never tell anyone about Plan B until Plan A fails."

Tom sent Harry back up to his room after he had finished tidying up from lunch. Harry was supposed to be practicing parselscript but it still looked like someone had trampled on a scrap of parchment which had been overrun by small worms. Harry copied out the alphabet a few times but still couldn't work out what the words were supposed to be. After a while he grew bored and began to trace the patterns on the wall from where the snakes had all been burned away.

After what was probably a couple of hours – Tom had told him he wasn't allowed to bring the hourglass upstairs and had jinxed him when he attempted it- Tom called him downstairs. Harry had learned that the door had the old charm replaced and he was still caught blue or green-handed after trying to open the door when Tom hadn't called or if he waited too long after the shout. Tom wasn't particularly happy when that happened and had started bringing out a particularly unpleasant numbing spell which caused him to lose all sensation in his fingers for about an hour. This was Ok when it was going on but the pain when the blood and nerves finally began working was excruciating. Harry avoided that whenever he could.

Harry rushed to get up and out of the door, just remembering to take his parchment down with him. They were back to studying in the kitchen. Tom was not impressed with Harry's progress and he made sure that the boy knew that. By the end of the lesson Harry's fingers ached from writing the same things over and over and his head ached from the weird mixes of languages Tom seemed to be employing – for some reason Tom had decided it would be acceptable for him to swear in French and the three languages were confusing.

Harry was brave enough to ask for a headache relief potion but Tom said he couldn't have one because of the cocktail of potions he had been inhaling all morning. Not to mention the huge turnover of new blood in his veins. He told the boy to just deal with it and if he had any problems, to take a dreamless sleep before going to bed.

Tom cooked the evening meal reluctantly. Harry noticed that the portions were still enormous compared to what they had been having before. Making those potions earlier must have taken a lot out of him and Harry was glad that he only had to prepare one.

"What are we studying tomorrow?" Harry asked. They had already covered Transfiguration and Potions for some unknown reason, he wondered if they were going to keep on with the school lessons.

"We are not." Tom replied, "I will be able to tell if the potion is going to lead me to any objects by tomorrow after lunch at the latest. Once I have a direction I am leaving and I may not return for over a day. You will have work to do of course."

"Of course," Harry muttered sarcastically.

"Go back to your room now," Tom ordered. "And try to write about some of your charms work. Write me a list of all of the spells and concepts you can remember from your first and second years. It should definitely be longer than two feet so make no attempts to keep to the simple theories. That course is being taught by a Flitwick these days and they are incredibly knowledgeable and competent duellists."

Harry didn't know how good his Hogwarts professor was at duelling but he did know that he assigned far less homework than this one. He also used far fewer curses when his students were slow to pick up the idea. Harry was glad that he was better than Neville would have been in these intensive lessons but his heart grew warmer at the thought of Tom having to deal with Neville Longbottom in any sort of class. Herbology, Neville's favourite- was far less organised and stressful when taught by Professor Sprout, It made Harry happy to imagine Tom Riddle doing his best to encourage Neville's knowledge of magical plants while trying to keep him out of the path of teething tentaculas.

Harry recognised the signs of Tom getting bored with his presence and he quickly grabbed a dreamless sleep potion off the counter top and headed back upstairs to the safety of his room.


	8. Manners

Chapter Eight

Manners

Harry wrote his list of charms first. It looked like he was going to have to spend a while going through everything he had covered in his first two years at Hogwarts. This looked like it was going to take him most of the evening and he would probably have to make a similar list for all of his other subjects when Tom asked. If he started them now, he could just update the lists when he remembered.

Harry tried to make the list quite thorough, he included the topics, specific spells, wand movements and incantations meaning that he was able to fill more than four feet of parchment before he ran out of ideas. He left that sitting next to him on the floor and started on a similar one for Transfiguration, this was considerably shorter. He had difficulties in McGonagall's classes, he didn't quite understand any of the equations from the theory side of it and most of the time his creations lacked detail and structural integrity. His disastrous attempt at turning a comb into a butterknife was a favourite anecdote of Hermione's now.

Oh, thinking of Hermione still hurt. Harry wondered if Tom would tell him about the people from Hogwarts if he asked. Probably not, but he felt like he should try it. He owed it to Ginny and the petrified people. He was glad that he knew the Basilisk was certainly dead, having stabbed the monster himself with the sword of Gryffindor.

If only he had been able to destroy the diary before the chamber had begun to collapse. Harry remembered having the idea to stab the diary with the fang that had been in his arm but when he had looked for it, the book was nowhere to be seen. Harry knew now that Tom must have taken it. Harry had barely had time to understand that Fawkes the phoenix had saved his life before he saw the bird grab Ginny Weasley's shoulder in his talons and fly away.

Harry remembered the cracks appearing in the statue of Salazar Slytherin, and how huge chunks began to fall into the water surrounding the tunnel. Maybe the chamber was linked to the basilisk somehow and the death had caused the collapse. The only memory he had after that was a hand grabbing him by his tender arm and a wand being pressed into his temple.

Harry must have stayed up for hours working on his lists and he knew why he was putting so much time into it as well. He really didn't want to go to sleep tonight. If Tom was going to be out for any longer than a couple of hours, Harry was worried about what Nagini might do. Tom had said that she couldn't get through the door yesterday, but what if she could now? He wouldn't put it past Tom to try and trick him over this. The door opened a hairs breadth, and Tom's voice came from downstairs.

"Potter, come down here!"

Harry stood up cautiously. It shouldn't be time for breakfast yet, it couldn't have been more than five hours since their last meal, and that had been dinner. He should probably have been in bed by now but Tom had never said anything about that. Harry was still dressed in his day robes since he hadn't had a shower yet. What was Tom likely to want in the middle of the night and how did he know Harry was still up?

"Come on Potter, or I'll send Nagini to fetch you down."

He moved then, of course, not wanting to risk being accused of direct disobedience. Pushing his concerns aside, Harry made his way down to the kitchen. His hand turned a green colour when he used it to pull open the door, showing him that he had dawdled for a bit too long.

Tom looked irritated by the wait when Harry made it in to the kitchen. He sent a curse at Harry's hands, which caused pain to flare up in his joints whenever he moved them.

He made the younger boy sit down in his usual place at the table and put a plate down in front of each of them.

"Eat up, boy." He said, "I will have to go out tomorrow to find out if my endeavours have been successful. You will be remaining here, in your room. You are not permitted to leave it while I am gone and you will eat at this table or not at all. Therefore it would be prudent to eat as much as you can now."

Harry scowled, it was difficult to eat neatly and with the best manners when you were unable to move your hands. It felt like his joints had been filled with an acid which was trying to eat away at his bones and muscles whenever they pulled on each other. Harry ate as well as he could though, despite not having much of an appetite so soon after their last meal.

Tom was not being particularly encouraging of conversation and the couple of half-hearted attempts made by Harry were swiftly battered down. Finally they were both finished.

"You can go back to your room soon," Tom said. "I want you to write me six sentences in parselscript tomorrow. Original sentences only. I expect you to be able to tell me what they say as well. When you have managed that, or more likely made such a muddle of it that you actually manage to summon something from the abyss; I would like you to write a Charms essay. Pick a charm and describe its versatility and uses. Pick a simple one and explain why you might use it over a specialised one with similar effects, then do the opposite and use a situation where the more complex charm might be more suitable."

Harry nodded, glad that he had already completed the list Tom had asked for. He should be able to find at least one example from the collection he had. Maybe _Wingardium Leviosa_ and another spell would do for that.

"I would prefer it vastly," Tom said, shaking Harry out of his thoughts. "If you could find the courtesy within you to answer me with words when I give you instructions, instead of just inane gestures."

Harry ducked his head apologetically, then caught himself doing that and answered, "Ok Tom"

Riddle suddenly slammed the table with his fist, making Harry jump. "Could you make some attempt to not use such childish language?"

Harry was more than surprised. He wondered what had happened to make Tom so angry today, this wasn't even anything the boy had suggested was annoying before now. The older boy hadn't been so antsy about anything since the day Harry had woken up.

"What am I supposed to say then?" Harry asked, puzzled.

Tom considered for a moment. "Almost anything else," he said. "Yes, all right, of course, would all be appropriate. I would also prefer if you would cease calling me 'Tom' all of the time."

"Of course," Riddle mused, "eventually you shall know me as Your Lord, and we will not have to deal with this ridiculous familiarity."

"Unless you kill me first," Harry supplied helpfully.

Tom smiled, "Quite."

After eating, Tom escorted Harry upstairs again. The boy stood next to the bed while Tom addressed him from his perch on the desk.

"You should be fine for the next day at least. If I am gone any longer than that, then tough luck. Do not expect any sympathy from me, I have done my best to give you extra food in preparation and you should not starve unless I am killed while I am away. "Tom waited here for a reply.

"That's excellent news," Harry said.

Tom grinned, "You won't be quite so flippant later. I have asked Nagini to keep an eye on you while I am away. I am sure you will both enjoy that."

Harry panicked, "You said the room was warded against her." He said, "So she can't get in anyway."

Tom grinned, "What I actually said was that I had warded the doorway so that she could not pass. It just so happened that she was already under your bed, watching you when I was warding the room."

Harry felt physically sick. He had been writing the list earlier from the floor, he could have been inches from the monster without knowing it. He dropped his eyes to the floor and inched slowly away from the bed, hoping he would have some warning if the snake decided to move.

"What if she eats me?"

Tom shrugged, "I already have your blood, that's all I need. I'm killing you next week anyway, that's what we agreed. What difference does it make to me if my pet speeds things up a bit? Nonetheless, you may have some slight use left in you, even if it is only as a meal the next time Nagini needs fresh meat." Tom pulled a small vial out of his pocket, Harry thought it looked like the anti-paralysis potion from the previous afternoon. "She may become a little overexcited if she smells your fear. If she does bite you then you would probably benefit best from drinking this as quickly as possible."

Harry took the vial with shaking hands. It had a long silver chain so that it could be worn about the neck of the owner. Harry was glad it would always be within reach.

"Please Tom, I won't do anything stupid, I'm going to stay right here, look. I'll spend the whole time doing work, or you could just stun me and have done with it, please don't leave me with her alone." Tears started to pool in his eyes and he was surprised as a couple spilled over and rolled down to drip off his chin. He hated begging like this, but he couldn't stop the words.

Tom didn't bend though, "You will stay here, I am sure you _will not_ do anything overly stupid and you _will_ do the work I have set you." He slipped down off the dresser and walked to the door, "Perhaps then, I would be less inclined to have you eaten."

Riddle slammed the door shut behind him as he left.

Immediately, Harry dived for the relative safety of the top of his bed. At least he would be able to see the snake come out if it moved. His hands prickled and he realised that Tom hadn't removed the hex from them. He was going to have a painful time writing if the hex didn't wear off. He hoped it would stop and wondered if this was what having arthritis was like.

Harry pressed his back into the corner against the scorched wallpaper. He hoped Tom wouldn't be gone for too long, there was no way he was going to be able to sleep if the serpent was under his bed. Harry almost smiled at the irony of having a monster under his bed at the age of twelve.


	9. Home Alone

Chapter 9

Home Alone

The parselscript was still impossible. And it certainly wasn't any easier with his painful hands. Harry wondered if it was possible to heal his hands faster. First he tried some muggle methods (first jumping from the bed so that his feet weren't vulnerable from snake attacks) he made his way to the bathroom and tried wrapping his hands in wet cloth. The pain was all inside his joints though and it didn't help an awful lot. Running his hands under cold water did a little but as soon as he moved the pain was just as bad as before.

Harry didn't know any magical healing spells. Despite spending so much of his time in the hospital wing. The only spell he had seen which might have helped was the one that idiot Lockhart had used to remove the bones in his arm. Harry was also pretty sure that that wasn't what Lockhart had been trying to do with that spell in the first place.

On the other hand, Harry had heard stories of magical children healing themselves. That was before they had wands too. If he could try one of that kind of spell, then he might be able to force out the curse. So he tried to concentrate on his fingers, envisioning little fires in his joints. He felt the pain flare up instantly and tried to imagine cooling them and smothering the flames. He couldn't extinguish them entirely but he could imagine the fires as small and contained. His hands did feel slightly better and although the curse wasn't completely expelled, it was possible to flex his fingers.

Harry was quite surprised that it had worked as well as it had and added it to his mental list of things to tell Hermione when he saw her again.

It was quite a short list, comprising only; the existence of parselscript, the death of the Basilisk, Tom Riddle's true identity and now his magical advances in first aid. Harry was quite proud of being able to focus in on his magic like this, McGonagall was always talking about 'channelling magic' and he hadn't understood before.

Harry snapped the top off his quill out of irritation. Why was parselscript so stupid? He was still having problems with the letters, they didn't come out quite right. He absently wondered if Nagini would be willing to help. It wasn't like he was going to ask her though – even the sight of the tip of her tail, flicking about just past the end of the bed was making him shake with fear.

He hated feeling so scared. He was supposed to be a Gryffindor after all, house of the brave. How brave could he be if he was so scared of a snake easily a twentieth the size of one he had killed easily less than a month ago?

It had taken Harry an embarrassingly long time to realise that the parselscript wasn't a code like he had thought. Knowing that this shape made an s sound (that shape appeared a lot) didn't necessarily mean that the equivalent word in English had an 's' in it. Harry supposed it was a bit like learning French or another language. He felt pretty stupid that it had taken until now to get that, when it should have been obvious.

The sentences were even harder to understand. Some words just didn't work in parseltongue. From Tom's examples the word 'knife' was the same as sword and dagger and most things pointy. Harry drew a small snake on a spare piece of parchment, to try out words on. He had to try saying the word out loud first, try to only hear the hissing and finally work out how the word was probably spelt in the parselscript letters. When he had a string of words, he had to say the whole sentence and try to hear which order the words actually came out in.

All in all it probably took him about an hour to write the first sentence. He tried re-writing it a few times to get the shapes of the letters before admitting that one of the words didn't look right at all. Tom had said that some words had their own shapes instead of being made up from lots of smaller parts, Harry thought it was like &amp; signs in the muggle world and resigned himself to not working this one out. He couldn't be bothered trying to fix it with a different word so decided to leave it for now and see if Tom would make a fuss about having to spell it out. Well, a bigger fuss than usual.

The next sentence went a little faster, he was half way through the third when a large shape sped out from underneath the bed.

"_Would you shut up?"_ Nagini hissed at him, swaying up to an intimidating height of 4 and a half feet. "_I'm trying to sleep down here. If I hear one more word from_ 'The crow of the rooster is fatal to the basilisk.' _Then I'll bite you and actually get some sleep."_

Harry froze in place, his eyes wide and his knees drawn up to his chest, _"Sorry."_

If the snake had had eyebrows, Harry had the feeling it would have raised one. _"Is that how you killed the queen of serpents, Boy? With a rooster?"_

Harry shook his head, _"No, with a pointy thing"_

The snake frowned to the best of its ability. _"You have neither fang nor claw, what pointy thing did you use?"_

"_There isn't a word for it."_ Harry moaned, _"A long, thin, metal pointy thing, it's sharp too. Do you know what I mean?"_

"_You mean a '_blade'_"_ The snake said. Somehow Harry caught the meaning of this. It was more like learning a new word in English than noticing he was missing a word. A bit like learning the word 'custard' instead of calling it that 'creamy, eggy thing you have with rhubarb'. He thought it was strange that this word wasn't hardwired into him like all the others but he thought he might be able to write this one down. He thanked the snake for helping him.

"_Will you be quiet now, Boy?"_ she grumbled_, "I would like a few hours to sleep without you burning the walls down. It already tastes of smoke in here, even after the Master cleaned it."_

Harry nodded dumbly and put the parselscript down to one side, picking up the Charms work. The snake slid back out of sight and Harry couldn't tell if he felt more scared or reassured by their encounter.

The Charms essay was actually quite interesting. He picked _Wingardium Leviosa_ as his simple charm, mostly because it was the first he had learned and he couldn't think of anything easier than that. It was definitely versatile too. Harry and his friends had used it for everything from bringing objects from across the room (Flitwick refused to teach even Hermione summoning charms until 4th year), to knocking out that troll in their first year.

Harry used _Mobilicorpus_ as an example of a more specialised spell of the same type. _Mobilicorpus_ was used to move the bodies of people and animals for short distances. It used more energy to sustain it than the simple spell but it also gave you a lot more control. It would be dangerous to try to move any living thing with _Leviosa_ because you ran the risk of putting too much or too little force into it and splatting the poor thing on the ceiling or floor.

Harry was starting to feel very tired and noticed that he had written his last sentence out four times. He scratched out three and tried to keep writing. He yawned and stretched out. Closing his eyes for a moment was a mistake as his eyelids refused to lift again. He had to force them back open and sit up straight to keep himself awake. It wasn't working though, he could feel his head nodding forward like it did in History of Magic lessons. He was spending most of his energy stopping himself from tipping forward over his work. Reminding himself of the snake didn't work anymore, he was just too tired to care about being scared.

Harry woke up nose to nose with Nagini. He let out a rather girly scream and rolled back out of the way, crumpling parchment as he went.

"_Boy was thrashing in sleep, shouting. We had a deal- boy not wake Nagini, Nagini not eat Boy"_

Harry was recovering from the shock in the 'safe' corner of his bed. Why couldn't he ever just wake up naturally, why did it always have to be so terrifying. _"Um, I'm sorry. I had a bad dream. A _bad_, bad dream"_ apparently there wasn't a word for nightmares, bad dream didn't in any way cover the panic of being slowly dissolved by Basilisk venom._ "Nagini can sleep now. Boy- I mean I- will stay awake. No more thrashing."_

Nagini seemed happy enough with this and disappeared again. Harry relaxed slightly. Harry looked down at his screwed up sheets of work and was dismayed to see a large pool of ink spreading out over the covers. He must have spilt his ink pot while he was asleep. The ink was soaked into the bed and some parchment and Harry's robe as well. He should probably fix this now. Tom wouldn't be impressed by the mess, he would probably think Harry had done it on purpose and be as volatile as usual.

Harry gathered up the bedclothes and put all of the unspoilt parchment into a pile. He took his usual leap off the bed- earning a disapproving hiss from his companion- and went to wash his things in the shower.

Harry had plenty of experience with this sort of thing. The Dursleys didn't like him using the washing machine too often, so he usually washed his blankets in the bath and left them out in his room to dry. It would be easier here, it had always been way too much bother in the cupboard under the stairs. The sheets never dried in the winter and felt damp for days after and in the summer the cupboard became unbearably humid. It became difficult to breathe sometimes with the air so heavy.

Harry's hands were quickly stained with the black ink and there was a huge mark on his leg from where he had been lying in it. The sheets were quite easy to clean out but they were distinctly greyer than they had been, they would look better with some bleach. The robes looked like they were going to need magic to fix. Harry smiled, Mrs Weasley would have known exactly what to do to get them green again.

The mattress was trickier. Harry used the wet robes to try and draw out some of the ink. He figured in for a Knut, in for a Galleon. He hoped he made a bit of a difference but it looked like he now had a very wet, very inky mattress instead of just an inky one.

After a while, Nagini slid out and started to bask under the light, stretching out so she was as exposed as possible. She ignored Harry so he pretended not to notice her too.

Eventually he gave the bed up as a lost cause and sat at the edge of it, trying to finish his sentences off. He was pleased to find out that blade translated into a word he could spell out. Occasionally Nagini perked up a little and tried to make him sound less disjointed in his speech. He wasn't brave enough to show her his writing because he thought she might laugh at him for thinking she could read. Harry was pretty sure it would be common knowledge is snakes could converse like that. He was also quite worried she might look and then laugh at him for writing complete nonsense.

When he was finally done with everything he was supposed to have done for Tom, Harry finished off what he could remember of his Transfiguration list. He also wrote down the names of the potions he could remember having brewed from the last two years (apart from the Polyjuice, it would probably impress Tom but Harry couldn't replicate Hermione's results and that would make the older boy mad).

He couldn't think of anything else to do to waste time, and he didn't really want to have a conversation with Nagini that was longer than the minimum necessary for her to not eat him and also didn't really want to go to sleep. The vials of dreamless sleep were sitting on top of the dresser though, looking tempting. The orange flakes seemed to have coagulated into a single mass at the bottom of each glass, each blob looked perfectly spherical and slightly wider than the neck of the vessel. With any luck he would be able to drink the potion without the weird extra.

Harry thought about it carefully, he didn't want to fall asleep and be eaten by Nagini without waking up. The dreamless sleep might let that happen, he wasn't sure how strong the doses would be. On the other hand Nagini hadn't wanted to eat him until he had started yelling in his sleep so she might not attack if he was deeply under.

Balancing up the options, Harry decided that he would rather take the chance of not drinking the potion. He might be able to stop the snake from eating him if he was more alert. He crossed his fingers and stretched out, avoiding the wet part of the mattress. He covered his eyes against the light and drifted back to sleep.


	10. We're Eating What?

Chapter 10

We're Eating What?

Thankfully, Nagini had decided not to eat him overnight. For once Harry actually had the opportunity to wake up naturally. He enjoyed it and spent a while just lying there before actually moving. It felt almost like the weekends at Hogwarts when there was no quiddich practice and everyone was still lounging around in the second year boy's dormitory.

The lights seemed brighter now, Harry took this as a sign that it was probably daytime and he might as well get up. A quick search around the room showed him that Nagini had left sometime. That meant that either Tom had come back and taken down the wards, or he hadn't actually set them up in the first place. The options were equally possible.

Harry showered first and remade the bed. He wasn't sure what to do with the old robe that was covered in ink so he rinsed it out again (it really didn't do it any favours) and left it dripping into the sink.

From the top of the staircase, he could hear noises in the kitchen and he could see that the door to the greenhouse-come-potions lab was open as well, which was odd because usually it was warded shut. Passing that door he could see Nagini basking in the light from the sun spell. He supposed it was pretty cold in the rest of the house.

Tom was in the kitchen of course. Harry was glad to see him again, even if it only meant he wasn't going to Nagini's next meal. Harry sat down at the table and watched Tom attempting to cook.

"You should try going to a muggle supermarket sometime. They sell food already made so that all you have to do is heat it up. You could eat just about anything they made if you had a microwave. But there's probably a spell for that, you'd have to make sure that nothing freaky happens to it when you use the magic though."

"Do you normally talk this much or did you miss me being here?" Tom smirked over his pan of simmering tomatoes. "I have been to a muggle market before. The muggles are not that advanced, even if their tinned food is enviable, preservation in that manner is easily accomplished with magic and has been for hundreds of years."

"You've obviously never heated up a ready meal then." Harry smiled, "But I suppose you are about 70 years old so that's probably after your time too."

The older boy ignored that and added more ingredients to his pan, some onion and peppers and things.

"Where are you getting all this food from if you don't use muggle shops? There's not exactly any grocery shops in Diagon Alley. And you aren't growing onions in the potions room."

"I have some contacts outside," Tom said, "I collected these from a drop off point on my way back this morning."

Harry nodded, picking at the peeling varnish on the kitchen table. "How did all that go, did your spell work?"

Tom spent a while concentrating on stirring the bizarre concoction in the pot. He added some ingredients Harry had never seen before and the boy hoped that Tom was cooking, and not just brewing a potion in the kitchen. He pulled a face as tom chopped sweetbread into large chunks and added it. "It was successful, I am now confident that I will be able to find all of the objects. It will however take quite some time to find all of them."

"So you're going to go out and get them, then what? Are you going to re-assimilate them where they are or will you bring them back here first?"

"I think I will bring them here. Then they will be safest. There are others who will have worked out by now that I have created my Horcruxes and they will also be seeking them. At the moment they are unaware of my return and will not expect me to remove them from their places of safekeeping."

Tom smiled at that and Harry thought he looked more like a cat that was pleased with itself than his usually snakelike self. Harry grimaced, he was probably imagining leaving little surprises for the others on the trail. He hoped Dumbledore or whoever it was had enough sense to be careful even if they thought Voldemort was gone.

Tom sighed, "You are still projecting your thoughts out to the world. For the sake of my sanity could you try to avoid such banal nonsense?"

Harry had to forcibly prevent himself from rolling his eyes. It wasn't his fault if Tom plucked random sentences from his head. If the boy wasn't going to teach him that Occludo-thingumy then he had no place to complain.

Tom put the lid on his pan and sat down, cracking his knuckles.

"You said I can't get rid of that Horcrux, right?" Tom nodded and Harry felt the familiar surge of nausea. "Is it going to do anything strange? You aren't going to try to possess me or anything?"

Tom considered for a minute, "It shouldn't," he offered unconvincingly. "If you had imbued the same quantity of soul as I have then I believe you would have been overpowered, especially as a baby. As it is I expect you will always have more control than the fragment, unless you run into an unfriendly dementor (is there any other type?). Other things though, you might get a bit of an explosive temper in a few years, more so than most teenagers- your brain re-wires itself and the Horcrux might have something to say about that. We already know you're a parselmouth and that you also get a few sneak peeks into the life of the Dark Lord."

Harry felt relieved. He could cope with being a parselmouth as long as nobody wanted him to write it down and the visions were ok when his scar didn't burn too badly. He hoped he wouldn't be too moody as a teenager. The older members of the quiddich team were bad enough and they were the friendly ones. But what on earth was a dementor?

Tom was freezing the flame under the pan and pouring the mix into a casserole dish. He opened the oven and placed it on a shelf, instantly heating the oven to the right temperature. Harry tried hard to keep the look of disgust off his face as Tom settled back into his seat.

Apparently he failed.

"If you look at it like that then you do not need to eat it. I don't care if you go hungry."

Harry forced his lip to not curl in disgust. "Isn't sweetbread pancreas? That is really gross."

Tom was surprised that he had never tried it before and changed his stance, insisting that Harry _would_ eat some this time, even if he didn't want to. "After all you have to experience some things before you die."

Harry couldn't prevent himself from rolling his eyes this time and was hit by instant queasiness as Tom cast some hex which caused his eyes to roll uncontrollably in their sockets. He cringed away, covering his eyes with his hands until Tom lifted it a minute later.

"I told you this before, I do not tolerate poor manners or childish behaviour at my table."

Blinking furiously, Harry tried to force his eyes into focus again. Tom wouldn't actually accept that kind of behaviour anywhere. Harry fantasised for a moment about releasing a pack of Cornish Pixies into the house for Tom to deal with.

"You wouldn't dare, I would turn you into one and feed the whole lot of you to Nagini."

Eye rolling would be dangerous here so Harry avoided it, it was a close call though.

Tom made Harry fetch his work from upstairs. He was actually quite impressed with the progress the twelve year old had made with the parselscript. Slightly suspicious too, but there was no way Nagini could have written it and there was nowhere else for the boy to obtain the shapes. He was however quite impressed the child had learned the word 'blade'. It wasn't a word most snakes knew.

Even if the boy was improving, it still took him a ridiculously long time to work his way through anything. When given something to transcribe or read out, it was excruciating to listen to him sound everything out bit by bit. Tom thought it was like listening to a five year old learning his first words, he never had much patience for that either.

The mystery meal announced its readiness with a loud ringing noise, not unlike the bell from Harry's old primary school. Tom jumped up, excited and levitated the dish out of the oven and onto a pot stand. Tom plated up a huge portion for himself and a smaller one for Harry. "No point wasting good food on uncultured children."

If this was what cultured children had to eat then Harry was glad that Dudley and he didn't count. It was probably safe to eat, Harry thought grudgingly, but he didn't think he would ever be as happy about it as Tom seemed to be. Given the choice he would pick the squid over this, and that was saying something!

Outwardly though, Harry appeared quite content with the meal. He didn't want Tom to decide he was making a fuss and not give him anything. Or it could be worse than that and Tom would decide he needed to try _more_ higher class foods. He hoped the older boy would keep to the less exotic cuts of meat- he didn't fancy trying brain anytime soon and he knew that was pretty common back when Tom grew up.

"So when are you going out again?" Harry asked casually.

"In a couple of days. I want this done as soon as possible."

"Are you getting them all at once?"

Tom snickered, "I cannot get all of them at the same time, foolish boy. If I were to try that then I could be gone for weeks. I told you before that I do not know where to look. That triangulation spell only works within a few miles of the objects."

"But you said you knew where most of them are!"

"I said I knew where I might hide them. Even if I was certain, it would be foolish to attempt collecting all of them at once. No, I shall be using this as a base and go out from here when I have a better idea of where to go."

"And you'll leave me here all that time?"

Tom smiled, "I will leave you here most of the time. Until your blessed departing of course."

Harry glared at him. He was fairly certain that Tom wasn't going to kill him unless he had a good reason to. "Why don't you just send me back to school? Then you wouldn't have to put up with me anymore, you could make whatever you like without me whingeing. And you could get a proper night's sleep without me waking you up."

"Why would I send you back to the Headmaster with all of the information he would need to kill me? And if you screaming at night bothered me then I could just cast a silencing charm on you." Riddle gestured with his wand.

"You could use a memory charm," Harry was serious, "Lockhart was going to do that to me and Ron. It would stop me talking and you could go back to making sure Voldemort can't return. Then everyone's happy!"

"Wouldn't work Potter" Tom said, "Even the strongest memory charms can be broken. Dumbledore would think it as significant enough to the 'greater good' to crack open your mind to find the answers."

That wasn't the first time Harry had heard the phrase 'the greater good' used in reference to Dumbledore. He didn't understand why but those who disliked the professor tended to say it a lot. Harry thought the headmaster cared for him more than that but the old wizard might not think his welfare was worth as much as that of the entire wizarding world. He could even imagine the sad and disappointed look on the man's face as he cast the charm.

"I could trick him then," Harry offered desperately. "Just give me another story and I'll convince him with that, I promise! I just want to go back to my friends. I need to know they're alright. Hermione's probably still petrified and I don't even know what's happening with Ginny. I need to go back, Hogwarts is my home!"

Tom's eyes flashed with anger. He stood up and Harry cringed back into his seat.

"Hogwarts is nobody's home. It is just a school, nothing more than that. Your home was supposed to be with your relatives and even they did not want you. The filthy muggles called us freaks!" The boy walked around the table to stand imposingly in front of Harry.

"You have nowhere to go Harry Potter. Nobody wanted you when you were a child and nobody wants you now. What do you think they will all think of you? You are not a hero to them. When they arrived there they found a dead basilisk inside the collapsed Chamber of Salazar the Great. Your best friend was lying there unconscious, your professor insensible and your friend's innocent little sister totally unresponsive. There is no Harry Potter and no diary for them to find. What do you suppose they will assume?"

Harry gulped. He knew what he would think if he came across all of that and it didn't look good for him. Dumbledore wasn't even at the school to defend him.

"Dumbledore would still help me, and McGonagall."

"Would they protect the next Dark Lord? If anyone were to scan you for dark magic then my littlest Horcrux would flare up like a small beacon. There is no way to detect whether you were the caster or recipient of the magic. All of the spells were performed with _your_ wand. Then they would cart you off on a one way boat to Azkaban, and leave you to rot. "

"What's Azkaban?" Harry asked. His voice was small and shook more than he would have liked.

"The British ministry's prison. It is a barren island in the North Sea. It is guarded by dementors, which you probably haven't heard of either, they feed on the despair and souls of the inhabitants. It is where they sent that oaf friend of yours when they took him away from the school." He tutted, "Your education is sorely lacking."

Harry sat, trying to fend away the hopelessness that was starting to creep into his stomach, settling there like a solid mass (He didn't think it was just the odd meal anyway).

"They would take me back," He said, desperate, "I could explain it all to them. Someone would believe me! You said Dumbledore could break into my mind- if he did that, he'd know the truth!"

Tom sneered, "Do you really think so? If so you are more foolish than I had thought. Nevertheless, it is no matter, you will not be leaving here to make any foolish attempts at reconciliation." His mouth curled in disdain. "I am bored of your company. You may retire. I will call you when I require your presence again."

Harry fled.


	11. Premature Teenage Angst

Chapter 11

Premature Teenage Angst

Harry stomped up the stairs as loudly as he thought he could without being told off for it. He heard Tom chuckle from the kitchen about 'moody teenagers' and took extra care to slam his door. The door took exception to this and Harry was astounded that his hands actually turned red for once. He would probably pay for that later though.

Now that he thought about it, Tom hadn't tried to remove the curse from his fingers yet. Maybe he had expected Harry to get rid of it by himself. At least hadn't renewed it.

Harry collapsed onto his bed after checking for hidden snakes, not taking any chances on that score.

He hated that Tom was able to come up with so many reasons to keep him there. It was hard to dispute some of Tom's ideas but Harry couldn't stand the thought of being stuck in this house forever.

He had been entertaining the pictures in his head of a triumphant escape and return to Hogwarts and his friends: these twisted into the image of Dumbledore's disappointed look as he was shipped off to that wizarding prison. The Weasleys shouting at him from the shore, Mrs Weasley crying over an impassive Ginny.

Harry had hardly ever seen the headmaster without his eyes on 'twinkle' but he did have the memory of seeing him in Snape's office after the flying car fiasco, and that was enough to convince him he didn't want to experience it again.

He had never really seen it for himself but he had heard from older students that the headmaster could look really frightening and be intimidating in a really cold and calm way. Percy Weasley passed on horror stories about the time a sixth year Gryffindor had bullied a first year Ravenclaw student for most of a year, before hexing him in the corridor so badly that the boy had to be taken to St Mungo's. Apparently Dumbledore had made the sixth year break down so badly, in the middle of the common room, that the girl had sunk to the floor and begged to be allowed to stay at Hogwarts. He eventually relented but the girl was given detentions with Filch every evening until she left the school at the end of the next year.

Harry was worried that the headmaster could be worse than that. He was well known as a strong force for good and Harry was scared of what he might do to him when he found out about the Horcrux. Surely the man would do something if he knew that Harry was a part of what was keeping Voldemort alive and dangerous.

Great, now Harry could really see where Tom was coming from. Anyone who was looking at this objectively wouldn't understand the full picture.

Harry's problem was that he knew himself to be innocent of everything. The only thing he hadn't done according to the school rules was not reporting Tom's diary to the professors when he had first found it in Myrtle's bathroom. And when he sneaked off to the chamber of secrets, and possibly the kidnap of his Defence professor…

So he broke the rules occasionally. Everyone did! The Weasley twins were never out of trouble. They knew the school better than everyone from their midnight (and class time) wanderings, except from perhaps Filch and Dumbledore. Except, they had never been down into the chamber, and they hadn't gone after the Philosopher's Stone last year either. Harry turned onto his side and started kicking the wall lightly, brooding.

It wasn't like he broke the rules on purpose, only when he needed to. Like going into the Forbidden Forest, he had to do that for Hagrid's sake. There was a bit of a noticeable theme though.

But would people really believe he was going to be a dark wizard? It hadn't taken them long to decide he was the heir of Slytherin, even when he hadn't been present at any of the attacks- some of the attacks.

According to Tom, they would be able to tell he was affected by dark magic but surely there was _some_ way to show that he had never cast any dark spells. He didn't know anything more dangerous than _Rictussempra_ anyway and Professor McGonagall could vouch for that. Sometimes having such a poor spell armoury was useful.

Harry was feeling queasy and wasn't sure if it was from the bizarre meal or from his thoughts spiralling around hectically.

The door pushed open and Nagini came in. Harry felt the familiar ball of fear tighten inside him.

"_Hello young one, you made master angry."_

"_Master made me angry too, it makes everything equal."_ Harry replied, sitting up with his back against the wall- it made him feel safest. His hand went to the unbreakable vial around his neck, checking it was still there. Why wasn't he surprised that there was no word for 'fair'?

"_But the master is in control. His is the food, the power, the magic."_

"_He's not a god, whatever he wants to think. And I've got magic too, you know."_ Harry pouted.

"_No magic without food." _The snake hissed,_ "No magic without pointy thing either."_

Harry glared, the room felt suddenly hotter, matching his temper,_ "I have magic without the pointy thing!"_

"_I know you do."_

Harry looked up in surprise. Tom was standing, leaning against the door frame. Calmly smirking as if he'd been there for hours. He might have been, for all Harry knew. He walked further into the room, stroking Nagini's head on his way to lean on the desk. The room cooled again, Harry wondered if it was because he had calmed down or if Tom was deliberately controlling it.

"So you do have some talent then, I felt you throw of that _Conflagro Articulae_ hex yesterday. I have to say I was mildly impressed. Wandless magic can be difficult to control, especially if you are going to try it without knowing the actual counter-curse. It is also good to channel emotion into your spells. It gives them a certain force." His eyes were hard despite his friendly tone. "However I will have to ask you to keep your temper, otherwise you might discover that I loose mine just as easily."

Harry shuddered involuntarily as he remembered the pain curse Tom had used a couple of days ago. That had been horrible, he felt shaky for hours afterwards. He never wanted to feel that again if he could help it.

"It seems," Tom said, capturing Harry's attention, "That I have caught you red handed."

Nagini sniggered- somehow- and Harry sighed at his crimson fingers. He forced himself to sound genial rather than irritated.

"How long did you spend thinking of that pun? I mean seriously… was that the point of letting me change the colour of everything the other day? Just so that you could say that line? I thought it was a bit of an odd thing to do."

It sounded like a lot of work to put into one joke. Harry had thought Tom had more important things to get on with than setting up something simultaneously so elaborate and mundane, but apparently not. His mind boggled at the number of spells you would have to master to set it all up.

Tom grinned, _"I got a bit bored waiting for you to wake up. I spent my time wisely, researching useful magic."_

Nagini wrapped herself up around Tom's shoulders. _"Master had to set up the room with plants and the room with food as well. Many experiments before the right thing happened."_

Harry grinned, imagining Tom surrounded by books like Hermione usually was in the library, looking for the right spell to cast a long lasting cooling spell to create a magical fridge and instead coming across one to animate pictures on wallpaper.

"_Yes, thank you Nagini."_

The snake was oblivious to both of them and happily ignored both Harry's look of delight and Tom's annoyed frown.

"_If you are only going to slam my doors then you can do without your hands for a while. This charm will last for two hours. Do not try to break this charm, you will break your fingers before you make any real progress." _Tom made a simple gesture with his wand- he must have stopped using Harry's somewhere along the way- and Harry's fingers stuck to each other so his hands were more like paddles. Harry had seen this spell used by Mrs Weasley when one of the twins had made a rude gesture in her presence over the summer.

"_I want you to write me more lists. Tell me what you have learned in your other core classes- at the moment Transfiguration and Defence as I already have one for Charms. I expect a potions list by tomorrow."_

Harry groaned,_ "That'll take ages!"_

"_You have nothing else to get on with, you may as well do this for me. I might eventually give you back your wand if you can be any use with it."_

Tom got up and left, carrying Nagini with him. Harry grinned. That meant he just had to write one list, for Defence, he'd finished all the others. And he had a couple of hours until he was going to be capable of writing anything so Harry thought he could try to get some control over his wandless magic; maybe he could get a useful spell to work.

Harry's favourite spell had to be _Expelliarmus_. He laughed every time he got to cast it because he remembered the look on Lockhart's face as Professor Snape sent him flying across the room. Harry wasn't including it in any of his lists, it was probably the best chance he had of getting hold of a wand. He hadn't exactly learned it in class either so he wouldn't even be lying by omission and Tom was good at detecting that.

_Expelliarmus_ was the spell he was determined to learn wandlessly. There was no chance that Tom would be thick, or slow enough to get knocked out by _Wingardium Leviosa_ like that troll. So he would have to get hold of the wand and hope he could _keep_ hold of it long enough to get out somehow. Of course he wasn't sure how to _get_ out, but practically, he just had to keep Tom in a body bind long enough to blast a wall down. He might be able to do that. There was definitely no chance that Tom would give him his wand back if he thought Harry knew any advanced defensive spells.

He didn't know what he would do after he did escape. Surely there was someone who trusted him enough. The Weasleys might but they were too risky, especially if Ginny or Ron were still hurt, to them family came first.

Harry still trusted Dumbledore, the kindly old man had always helped him in the past. The problem was, he wasn't sure if Dumbledore was still going to trust him after all of this. Maybe his head of house was his best bet- she was notoriously strict but McGonagall was also well known for her fairness.

A couple of hours later, Harry was exhausted, wandless magic took a lot of concentration and a lot of energy. It took a lot out of him to bring up the kind of emotion he needed to give any power to the spells. He was also quite bad at the concentrating part. It was far too easy to get distracted and get lost in his thoughts when he was trying for so long. His hands had finally unstuck themselves and he was happy to spend a few minutes just cracking his fingers and tapping them against things.

He had gotten to the stage where he could make his toothbrush move across the bed in little jumps, it was going to take a lot of practice to get to any stage where he might be able to disarm Tom.

Harry went to sleep hungry quite some time later. Happy that he had finished everything Tom had asked for and made quite a lot of progress in his own project.

He was even brave enough to drink one of the vials of dreamless sleep after he showered. It tasted… bitter and dark, like chewing on a coffee bean. The Orange Glob got stuck in the neck of the vial but burst as Harry was drinking the last few drops of potion. He almost choked on it, and was flooded by the smell not unlike Dudley's old trainers. He had enough time to panic before he fell back onto the bed, deeply asleep.


	12. Poisoned

Chapter 12

Poisoned

The next 'morning' Harry was actually allowed breakfast food when he came downstairs. Despite the porridge and toast, Tom still refused to tell Harry the time. He wouldn't reveal the date either or even which day of the week it was. The strange patterns of food and sleep were really beginning to mess with the boy's head. It was hard to tell if Tom was actually eating meals in a strange order or if he was just leaving Harry out of some of them. Either way it reminded him of the days he had to sneak out of his cupboard at odd hours to snatch food from the kitchen cupboards.

Tom got annoyed quite quickly today. To be fair, Harry _was_ pestering the teenager by pelting him with questions which he was refusing to answer. Asking about Hogwarts, his friends and all about the outside world. It took all of five minutes for Riddle to decide to put the twelve year old into his version of a time-out.

Kneeling down facing the wall with his hands behind his head gave Harry the time to reflect that pushing the older boy to his limits was not the way to have a peaceful life. He was however glad that he had finished his breakfast before deciding to be a complete idiot. Harry slouched a little and was jerked back upright by the spell.

Harry heard another page being turned behind him. Tom was flicking through pages from the piles of books littering the table. He had been doing that ever since Harry had come into the kitchen and hadn't really stopped except to cast this spell.

Nagini came into the room to be fed too and Harry yelped from the burns as he flinched away from her and his hand moved subconsciously to feel for the bottle of anti-venom. Tom make an exasperated noise, irritated by his lack of self-control but didn't say anything. Soon the room was filled with the screams of a dying rabbit and Harry had to put most of his energy into not bringing his breakfast back up. Eventually the screams stopped and there were a few shudder-inducing **cracks** as Nagini started to swallow it.

When silence fell again, Harry let out a deep sigh, glad it was over for now.

"_You are very squeamish Boy,"_ came Tom's voice, Harry could hear the laughter behind it. _"Especially for someone who was very recently up to his own elbows in Basilisk fangs."_

Harry _was_ sick then. He threw up on the floor to the side of where he was, howling from the pain of the curse.

Tom appeared next to him suddenly, vanishing the mess and releasing the curse. Harry collapsed onto his side, curling up and shaking. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he cried out.

Tom looked panicked, Harry would remember later that he looked more unsure of himself than he ever had.

"Are you alright, Potter? Even you can't be that weak stomached."

Harry shook his head, "I don't know," he said, "I feel bad." He was sick again and Tom jumped back disgusted.

"Do you always react this badly to mildly disturbing occurrences?"

Harry didn't dignify that with a response and instead tried to bury his face in the tile floor.

"That was a joke, you aren't very interesting when you are sick. I think you should go back to bed if your only plan is to make as much mess as you can manage."

Back in his bed, Harry noticed that he still hadn't stopped shaking. He didn't feel cold or even very scared any more. Warming back up under his blanket, Harry was glad Tom hadn't left him to it after he was sick. Suddenly Harry felt a sharp pain in his middle and doubled up in pain, smothering screams of pain by biting the cuff of his robes.

After about thirty seconds of feeling like he was back being held under the Cruciatus Curse, Tom burst through the door and just stared at him for a minute.

"What is wrong with you?" He shouted. "You were relatively normal yesterday, what in Merlin's name did you do to yourself?"

Harry froze as still as possible for a moment as the pain subsided a little. "I don't know," he gasped. "One minute I was fine, then I just lost it."

"And your breakfast."

Harry didn't laugh.

"That was funny too, you would appreciate that if you weren't dying."

"You poisoned me!?"

Tom rolled his eyes, "Of course I didn't, and you would already be dead if I had poisoned you. Why would I bother keeping you around long enough to get sick everywhere? You probably poisoned yourself! Drink any Cleaning Concoctions this morning?"

"No." Harry groaned, "I make a point of not drinking random potions."

"Are you sure?" Tom asked, he picked up an empty vial from the floor next to the bed and looking doubtfully at the gelatinous mess at the bottom. "Was this one of yours?"

"Dreamless sleep, I had it last night. I was fine until breakfast though."

Tom sat down cautiously on the edge of the bed. "Here, let me do some tests on you." He pointed his wand at Harry and ran through a few charms. Each one flagged up a flash of a different shade and Tom was muttering to himself about them.

There was a low hissing from the floor.

"_Is the boy alright, no more sick?"_

There was then. Harry had to lean over the edge of the bed, retching hard. Nagini moved faster to get out of the way than Harry had ever seen her go. At the same time, one of Tom's charms went haywire. Instead of the usual small flashes of light which had been coming out of his wand up to now, the whole room was bathed in a cyan glow for a couple of seconds. Tom almost dropped his wand in shock.

Harry recovered enough to speak, "What is it? What happened?"

"I was trying to identify any allergies you might have. It was blank until my Nagini started to speak, then it flared up like that. _Does that happen with all parseltongue?"_

Harry's instant decline was proof enough of that.

"Would you mind not doing that? Can't we just all not talk parseltongue?"

Tom laughed, though he looked oddly relieved. "Of course we can't. You were not allergic to anything yesterday. We have to find out what is causing this. Come downstairs, we will have a look at what is going on. I'm going to need more of your blood."

Great, Harry thought, more bleeding. Hadn't Tom got enough to do without worrying about this? Why couldn't he let Harry die in peace?

"Come on," Tom pulled Harry along by the wrist. "Get up. I am not going to carry you downstairs. You made it all the way up here, you can get down again no problem." He pocketed the empty vial and one of the full ones before following the boy downstairs.

The lab was untidy for once. Tom took a bit of pity on Harry and transfigured a couple of stools into a low pallet for him to lie on. Tom lit up some fires under half a dozen small cauldrons and one huge one, telling Harry it was for a batch of undifferentiated Diagnostics Potion. He was going to use it to test both the vials of dreamless sleep and Harry's blood.

It took a long time for Tom to run through all of the tests he wanted. He kept remembering other spells and disappearing off somewhere, chasing up footnotes from the books. Harry was starting to wonder where on earth Tom had been keeping them all. Tom also took a ridiculous amount of blood to add to the cauldrons. He gave Harry Calming Draughts but not the Blood Replenishing one this time, Harry didn't know why.

After many more hours of brewing, the lab was full of fumes. It made a layer of smog just below the roof. Tom was still messing about, adding Bouncing Bulb shoots to one and Tree-frog livers into the others. Harry felt a little better as long as everyone stayed with English. Nagini was sulking outside the door after Tom had banned her from the room. She had kept coming in before to ask questions like a concerned parent. Of course that hadn't helped Harry at all, and he kept producing more bile and soured porridge.

"Ah, I've got it!" Tom shouted, collapsing onto a chair with a cup of something in his hands.

"Britain's next award winning tea blend?" Harry joked weakly.

"Oddly enough, no. I do however know what is wrong with you. Do you want to know?"

Harry sat up slowly, nodding for Tom to continue.

"Well primarily what is wrong with you is that you were hit with a fairly large dose of basilisk venom in the chamber. That bloody chicken of Dumbledore's managed to neutralise the venom, but not the chemicals left after it broke down. So you have a lot of random toxins floating around in your blood. That would have been fine being dealt with by your liver, except you had to drown yourself in a mix of Coccinellidae wings and Ceanothus Sap, that's what the orange stuff was- Cockatrice Camphor. It occasionally forms when you add those ingredients with too much force. The Dreamless Sleep was probably too potent without those combining properly, I am surprised that you woke when you did." Tom swirled the liquid in his cup, examining it.

"Hearing parseltongue seems to trigger a reaction. Parseltongue is its own magic, it affects both the venom and the orange gunk, combining them and making you ill."

"Are we actually going to do anything about it or were you just having fun doing the forensics?" Harry asked

"Behave, I'm saving your life."

Harry rolled his eyes and waited for Tom to get on with it.

"I'll give you that Blood Replenishing potion now. There was a possibility it could have made things worse before, but it should make you feel better right now. I think there is a potion I can make which should help, it'll take a while to brew though. It should help to keep the two substances from reacting for long enough for you to get rid of them. Only you would be able to make the one thing which could strengthen the venom."

Harry privately agreed. He had the worst luck, especially when it came to potions. Cockatrices were pretty similar to Basilisks, right? He thought they were created similarly anyway. Had he really made something to strengthen it? And what is the point in Phoenixes having super powered tears if it wasn't going to deal with the actual problem.

Tom gave him the Blood Replenishing potion now, "It could take a while though. I'll find you a Sleeping Draught, so you don't spend all your time complaining and annoying me"

"And Nagini? She won't be happy if you don't let her back in."

Tom looked less happy now. "She'll have to stay out of the room, she won't like it very much but her speaking would set you off again. I hope she doesn't make too much of a fuss about it, she can be quite difficult when she wants to be."

It was a bit of an understatement really. Nagini was perfectly capable of killing Tom, even if that wouldn't get rid of Voldemort for good. Death was usually a bit more than a setback to most people…

Tom walked over to his bookcase and took down a handwritten text. He flashed it in Harry's direction.

"This is why it is important that you learn how to read parselscript. This book one of very few which would contain a potion like the one you need. I found it in a small bookshop in Knockturn Alley. They of course had no idea what it was about, so I got it for a very low price. You are lucky I have this here and I do not have to try and adapt an antidote."

It was also a suspiciously huge coincidence. There was a huge possibility that Tom was lying to him about everything but Harry didn't think his captor would be willing to spend so long trying to keep up with so many potions if he already knew what was wrong.

Tom presented him with a new potion and made sure he drank it before leaving him alone. Harry watched the older boy walk back to his book and begin to collect new piles of ingredients. Tom had been promising to kill him soon. It was strange that he was bothering to save him now. If he didn't want Harry around anymore then he was sure to let him know. Probably right before he pulled the trigger.

A/N I've just gone back and updated the whole fic, there is quite a lot that has been annoying me for a while. I think it's been the best way to remind me of what was going on before I stopped. Thank you for the reviews, you're all amazing!


	13. Plans

Chapter 13

Plans

The potion tasted awful. Harry dropped the goblet it had been presented in and almost spit it straight out but Tom had warned him that there wasn't very much and he needed at least two doses of the stuff so he forced himself to swallow it. After gagging a couple of times Harry ran to the sink and started gulping down water, trying to clear the taste out of his mouth.

"It's foul, what the hell went in that?"

Tom grinned, bending down to pick the cup up off the floor. "Mostly bits of spiders now that I think about it, acromantula hairs and the like. Quite a lot of Gallus blood too. A few drops of Hellebore."

"Ugh, that's so horrible!" Harry could still taste the metallic tang of the blood at the back of his mouth, overpowering the other ingredients.

"You asked. Aren't you going to thank me?" Tom smiled, "I could have just left you chatting with Nagini you know. She so _loves_ talking with you."

"Yeah, right. Thanks." Harry stopped trying to scrape the tastebuds off his tongue with his fingernails. "I'm really grateful to you for not leaving me to die at the hands of mundane conversation."

"I'm glad you appreciate it. Nagini will be so sad to hear that you are not keen on her presence." Tom spun around and started to walk out of the door, "If you're hungry then come through to the kitchen. It's been a while since either of us ate properly."

He resolved to learn his wandless Expelliarmus as quickly as was humanly possible, he couldn't deal with all of this stress. Harry did follow though, his stomach was telling him that he had been neglecting it for too long and he was inclined to indulge it for once.

Tom was already busy cooking by the time Harry had dragged himself through to the kitchen. He tossed a tray with chicken into the oven and put some vegetables to boil on the hobs. Finally he gathered up their teacups and poured out two piping mugs of tea from the always full, always hot teapot. Harry collapsed into his place, too exhausted for anything else.

Tom considered him closely for a few seconds before summoning the sugar bowl and dumping about 6 heaped teaspoons into both cups. Harry managed to drag it towards himself and started sipping it. It was even sweeter and milkier than the way Ron took his. He felt a little better after a minute though and sat up a little straighter. Tom gave him a rare approving look.

Harry wished that his stomach would settle in place. And he wouldn't complain if he could work up enough energy to last him until it was safe to break down upstairs, either.

"What's the date today?"

That was how a lot of their conversations started these days. Tom just smiled and shook his head.

"It doesn't matter. Time is what you make it."

"Time is what everyone else makes it too, that's why we have calendars. What date does every other person on Earth think it is?"

"The wrong date probably, it is all a bit arbitrary, don't you think? Especially with all of those funny 'time zones'. And everyone starts their calendars in different places too. We probably don't even think it is the right _year_. "

Harry leaned forwards and banged his head of the table, repeatedly. Tom could be as cooperative as a brick wall when he was trying- ha, trying in more than one way. Lunch (As Harry decided to call it this time) was as large as Harry needed it to be. Tom had cooked what should have been enough for four people but just managed to sate both of their appetites.

And Harry managed to keep it all down too. Even when Nagini made an unannounced appearance and Tom had to shepherd her quickly out of the kitchen before anything bad happened. Harry could hear her hissing loudly from the other room though. She was really_ not_ happy at being excluded. It was slightly easier to hear her voice from a distance, it didn't make him feel as bad as them both being in the same room. A few seconds later Tom came back minus the serpent, bringing with him another goblet full of the potion. Harry threw it back quickly before draining his freshest cup of tea. That seemed to do a lot to help block out the taste.

"I am going out tomorrow" Tom announced.

"Where are you going?" Harry didn't really expect an answer so was surprised when Tom supplied one.

"I have identified the location of another of my Horcruxes. I shall be going to get it tomorrow."

"What time are you setting off?"

Tom laughed, "It wouldn't help if I did tell you, you know. You will probably be asleep when I go. You spend more time in bed than a Cerberus at an Eisteddfod."

"That's strange," Harry said, "How come you know how to get past Fluffy but Oldie Voldie didn't?"

"Do not call me that." Tom's right eye twitched, "Miss Weasley was proud to tell me of her brother's accomplishments last year. Since she is not the most reliable source of information I found myself a few interesting texts on the more obscure magical creatures. Coincidentally, that is the same book which gave me the information on Cockatrice Camphor. It is what they used to use to give Cockatrice more energy when they were pit against each other in the arenas of medieval Britain, you know?"

Harry blinked slowly, "I did not know that."

He shook his head to clear it of toads and chickens and magical beasts which could turn animals to stone.

"Will you be gone long?"

"You shouldn't miss more than a meal or two if that's what you're worried about. I might even consider leaving you some food upstairs since you are unwell- that is if you behave and don't get on my nerves too much."

That would make it better than last time, Harry thought.

"I will however be leaving you in the care of Nagini."

Harry could tell that his whole face fell at that news.

"Do you have to? You could just give me another potion and let me sleep through it."

The boy shook his head, "She will take good care of you. I will not have you drinking any more Sleeping Draughts. The one I gave you can become addictive and I have no wish to drag a teenager through any withdrawal stages, thank you. Dreamless Sleep potions _are_ safe when they are made by any competent brewer."

Harry growled at the insult.

"Obviously we have discovered that you are incompetent. Therefore we shall have to do without. I am sure that you will eventually grow up and stop crying over your night terrors."

This made Harry's blood rise. He was terrified to go to sleep most of the time because of those dreams. Harry had always struggled with nightmares. Especially since he had started going to Hogwarts, and he had realised that most of his fears were well founded. Muggle children were perfectly happy knowing that zombies, vampires and trolls probably didn't exist. Dudley would probably have a nervous breakdown if Harry actually told him about anything that happened at school, especially since he almost wet himself at the word 'magic'.

"I am not a child!" Harry shouted, "Why don't you try being attacked by a huge monster, then being forced to try and sleep in the same room as its baby cousin. Then throw in some light kidnap and a junior Dark Lord. That would give anyone nightmares!"

"So it would," Tom smirked. "Thank you, by the way. I had no idea I had made such a positive impression on you. And of course you are a child. You are not even a teenager yet for Salazar's sake."

"If I'm a child then so are you." Harry said petulantly. "You're only sixteen."

"I may only be sixteen, Harry Potter." Tom hissed in his low, dangerous voice, "But I have already killed."

Harry thought for a second. "I've killed somebody too." He said. "Professor Quirrell died last year when you were latched on to the back of his skull. I haven't really thought about him that much but I suppose it was my fault. He just sort of crumbled when I touched him. I can't believe he was still a better teacher than Lockhart though. Does Myrtle even count, that's who you're talking about, right? It was the basilisk that got her."

"The death of that teacher does not count as murder in the laws of old magic, not on your part anyway. That Professor perished after Voldemort abandoned him because he could not bear the pain. That death is on my shoulders, not yours. On the other hand, I ordered the basilisk to kill the girl…"

"Did you really?" Harry interrupted. "The way she tells it, she just seemed to open the door at the wrong time and got caught in the headlights."

"I didn't let the basilisk just wander randomly through the corridors Potter."

"You did though," Harry said. "This time anyway, Justin was just off the charms corridor. And Hermione and the other girl were coming out of the library."

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose with his long fingers. "Your friend, Miss Granger was a deliberate target, of course." Harry started, Tom had been trying to kill Hermione. "And that boy was only a mudblood too. The basilisk goes where I tell it to, Potter."

"Went." Harry said, his voice full of venom.

"I beg your pardon?" Tom glared across the table.

"The basilisk _went_ where you _told_ it to." Harry watched Riddle's lips go very thin, the same way McGonagall's did when she was mad. He didn't know why he had suddenly chosen to live dangerously. "I think you can remember it isn't going anywhere now."

"Potter," He hissed, in a low voice. "I believe you may be delirious. If you want to make it back up to your room in one piece then I suggest you go _now_, before I lose my patience. I will send Nagini in before I leave."

Harry swallowed down the hate he was suddenly feeling for Riddle. He knew how dangerous the basilisk was but it had never really clicked that any of the petrified victims could have died if it wasn't for their luck or- in Hermione's case- intellect. So instead of exploding like he wanted to, Harry took the hint and practically sprinted up the stairs, flinching as he heard a series of loud smashes from the kitchen.


	14. Arguments

Chapter 14

Arguments

Harry was alone in his room for quite a while. He was a little nervous about how angry Tom was. The last time he had seen him so mad, Voldemort had tried to kill him.

On the other side though, Harry was angry too. Angry that Tom had torn him away from Hogwarts. That he had been set up so that he looked like the bad guy to everyone he loved. And still angry about what the older boy had done to all of his friends.

Harry hated seeing his friends get hurt and so many people had been this year. Hagrid and Dumbledore had been chased away. Hermione and Colin and the others all petrified. Ginny was hurt pretty badly too, she had been hadn't been able to speak or move in the chamber and Harry was having odd dreams about her lying in a hospital bed. Harry just hoped that nobody had died this year. Now that the monster was no longer at Hogwarts (and the basilisk was dead), everybody should have been able to get back to normal.

Of course school must be finished for the summer by now, if it hadn't closed the next morning as McGonagall had been planning with the other staff. Everyone else would be back at home, the Dursley's especially were probably having their best summer ever without Harry in the house. Uncle Vernon would be able to bring more people home to fawn over without being worried about owls attacking anyone. Harry hoped that nobody had told the Dursleys, so they would have waited for him at Kings Cross.

Owls. Harry sighed. He missed Hedwig as much as he did any of his friends. She had always been with him, ever since his first day in the wizarding world. She kept him company at Privet Drive as well. He wished he knew that she was being cared for by someone. Hedwig was resilient and could feed herself by hunting but she would be upset if there wasn't anyone to sneak her bits of toast or bacon in the mornings.

The Expelliarmus practice was progressing very slowly. Harry was careful to be as quiet as possible and that wasn't helpful when you were trying to cast as powerful a spell as possible. At least he didn't have to try to cast it non-verbally though. He had quite enjoyed watching the seniors trying to cast their spells without talking. He and Ron took bets on which sixth year was going to turn the darkest red before giving up on their homework. When the time came for him to use the spell against Tom, Harry was going to be able to shout as loud as he needed to. He would only have the one chance and the element of surprise wouldn't last very long.

He decided that the next time he was wandering around the house unsupervised he would have a look to see if he could find the way out. It was starting to get a little embarrassing really. He hadn't seriously looked for an escape since his first couple of days awake.

Asking Tom repeatedly to let him go didn't seem to be working out very well either. Actually it just made Tom very cross very quickly. Then he either got hexed or Tom took the time to carefully explain why the wizarding world wouldn't be happy to see him. Harry wasn't sure which one of those he found more painful; the hex was normally over quite quickly but it wasn't fun to suddenly sprout tentacles or whatever else Tom thought was funny at that moment. The lecture stayed with him longer, and Harry spent far more time brooding afterwards.

Harry was listening for the sound of Tom coming up the stairs, so he was able to make it look like he had just been taking a nap, instead of spending however long making various objects flip about the place. Tom looked suspicious but that was pretty much his resting state these days. Harry wasn't too worried. He grimaced as he was passed another goblet of potion. In Harry's opinion it tasted worse than Skelegrow.

"That's the last of it," Tom said. "You would probably have been fine without it but if Nagini is going to chew your ear off like she did mine then I expect you'll be needing the extra."

Harry checked to make sure Tom wasn't being literal (thankfully he wasn't).

"I will be going in a little while, so you wi…" Tom cut off. "What is that?"

Harry stood to look as Tom walked into the bathroom and pulled the still-wet robes out of the sink. It didn't look like the stain was going to come out. It was probably the properties of the ink. Harry knew lots of ink had never-fading and waterproofing properties, he should have remembered that.

"I thought I told you to take care of my possessions, Potter."

"I did!" Harry said, "It was an accident, I tried to fix it."

Tom frowned, "You need to be more careful. I do not appreciate you being so cavalier about this. If you had told me then I could have fixed this when it happened. Now it has set in. I shall have to get rid of them."

"Why bother?" Harry pointed out. "It's only the three of us that are likely to ever see it."

"You should care, every time I see you wearing it will remind me just how idiotic you really are. If I ever did need to be reminded. I ought to charm some more snakes for these; maybe that would make you be cautious of something for once."

"Have you been reading up on some more household spells then Tom? You keep going on about being the most powerful wizard all of the time but the only spells that_ I've_ ever seen you do are these cutesy decorating ones. Who the hell are you…?"

"Crucio."

Harry screamed. His knees gave in and his kneecaps smashed into the floor. He battled to keep from collapsing completely. The taste of blood filled his mouth as he bit his tongue in an effort to stop yelling out. Tom relented much more quickly this time than he had before. Maybe he actually was being careful because Harry was ill.

"Does that give you an idea of how powerful I can be Harry Potter? I do not only practice household spells. You are lucky that too much dark magic would aggravate your condition." Tom reached down and yanked Harry back up onto the bed by his robes. "As it is you should be taking great care not to aggravate _me_."

Tom summoned one of his parselscript books from downstairs. "I would like you to start translating this for me, from the seventh section. Print it, your handwriting is still atrocious. Impress me."

Tom left the room and Harry curled up on the bed, trying to focus his breathing. That curse was the worst. Sometime later Nagini swept in and announced that Tom had left. Harry was glad that the boy wasn't there and more and quite thankful that he didn't have the urge to be sick when Nagini spoke.

"_Master left boy work to do. Master very angry."_

"_I know, I'll do it in a bit." _Harry really couldn't be bothered with doing any studying now. He wasn't like Hermione, he couldn't just study all the time no matter what else was happening in his life.

"_Boy should do what master says, then master will be less angry."_

"_How's that working for you?"_ Tom spent a lot of time semi-lamenting that Nagini didn't do what he wanted her to.

"_Master loves Nagini."_

"_He's never going to like me though. I might eventually get to the 'not actively being in his way' stage."_

"_Boy should work, Nagini will help."_

Harry realised that the snake wasn't going to leave him alone until he had started doing something with the translating. He spent as long as he could preparing a new quill and setting out his parchment. Eventually he had to start reading.

The book was called _"A Study of Dragons and Other Draconian Species." _It was an ancient looking text and the pages were full of dust. Chapter seven seemed to be on the many types of dragon species which were responsive to parseltongue. It was quite interesting- apparently Welsh Greens could communicate with Parselmouths.

Nagini perked up when Harry mentioned Albanian Redhorns. She told him a funny story about tricking a young dragon into flying away from a prime nest spot. Apparently the Albanian Dragons were particularly stupid.

Nagini was surprisingly helpful with the translating. You wouldn't have thought she could be, being a snake and all, but apparently she could read a little. According to her some magical snakes could read the language, others were 'too stupid'.

As she was his leading authority on all things serpentine Harry didn't argue.

After a while, and about twenty inches translated on all things dragon, the conversation came back around to Tom.

"_So how did you find Him then?"_

"_I was with the master at home and then the other master found me. He promises I keep more of my poison so I follow him here. More rabbit here, less lynx, no bears."_

So Nagini had been with Oldie Voldie before, then. He could understand why Tom would be the more appealing of the two. Especially if she didn't have to face off with random fierce creatures all the time. It must be a bit like retiring.

"_Is he always like… well…this?"_

"_Master gets angry sometimes, Master stops Nagini from killing everything she wants as well."_

"_Yeah, he doesn't let me do what I want either." _

"_And he tells Nagini where she must be. Does not speak to her, speaks wrong."_

"_He doesn't tell me anything either." _Harry moaned_. "I hate it when he comes in and he's all mad for no reason."_

The snake nodded,_ "Master shuts Nagini in rooms. Doors do not open. Very cold out of Sun Room."_

That's right, Harry thought, snakes are all cold blooded. No wonder she got annoyed at being left out while Tom made the potions.

It was funny talking to Nagini, they both had very similar complaints of Tom. He tended to lock them both out of the way, shout at them when he was mad and keep secrets from them. The biggest difference was that Tom actually made the effort to be nice to his pet. He made the effort to be mean to Harry most of the time.

Harry found out that Nagini was jealous of him being able to spend so much time with her master. He told her he was jealous of her because she never got in big trouble.

"_But you make the Master angry on purpose."_

Harry tried to argue with that but if he was being honest, it was the truth. It was fun to irritate Tom, as long as you didn't go too far.

At least Nagini didn't seem as keen on eating him now. He got the feeling she would miss him being there, especially if it meant she would have to deal with Tom's mood swings by herself.

Nagini forced him to do more of the translating, he tried to resist but she threatened to bite him if he made Tom cross with her. Harry wrote as much as he could and was surprised that it was getting easier. He kept on with it until he started slipping into just copying down the original script. By then he was comfortable enough with the snake's presence to have a shower, then get into bed.

He sighed as he lay down. At some point Tom was going to find out about the rest of the ink stains. He had forgotten about them earlier because of the argument that had ensued. He groaned, maybe it would be better for him to just flip the mattress over and not say anything. He didn't want to have to face down another Cruciatus Curse for it.

His last thought before going to sleep was that he really needed to find out how to change the lighting. It would be good to have at least a semblance of a diurnal rhythm. He resolved to ask Nagini in the morning. It would be too embarrassing to ask Tom, he would just laugh about it taking Harry so long to bother to find out and refuse to tell him on that principle.

A/N So it looks like Harry is going with Tom on at least one of the Horcrux missions. It might be good for him to get out of the house (evil cackle). It might take a few chapters though so have patience; good things come to those who wait!

I know some of you have been waiting a while, hopefully I'll have a chapter out in the next week- today is 22/2


	15. The Ring of Truth

Chapter 15

Tom laughed, very loudly.

"What do you mean 'The competative air-velocity of African and European Shortsnouts depends upon whether they are laden or unladen.'?"

Harry blushed. "I thought that was what it said. I can't be too far off- it was going on about Migration and coconuts, that doesn't translate well!"

"There is no way that is anywhere near right."

Tom was in a good mood. Harry knew that his mission must have been successful. Tom wouldn't have returned if it hadn't been. Unfortunately, Tom had decided it would be best to work out his good spirits by checking through Harry's work.

They were sitting in the kitchen, they had just finished eating. Tom holding the parchments. Nagini had headed into the lab to warm up, she was still complaining that the house was too cold. Harry was feeling slightly odd but he couldn't work out why that was.

"And here you've written 'Welsh Greens are this intelligent because they do not think.'" Tom guffawed loudly. Not a noise befitting the heir of Slytherin, Harry thought.

"The book really did say that one!" Harry protested. "Read the next bit, it explains what it means."

Tom did, but he read on with a good dose of scepticism. Harry noticed that there was hissing in his ears, like the high pitched noise you can get around electronics. It felt a bit like parseltongue but there were no actual words.

When Tom finally stopped nit picking his way through his work, Harry took his chance to ask about the trip.

"So it worked then? Have you got it? What is it?"

Tom nodded and held out his hand by way of explaining. He was wearing a large, chunky ring on his middle finger. The ring was quite ugly in Harry's opinion. It was made out of gold and had many scratches and dents in it. There was a black stone set in it, with some shapes scratched into it.

"That's…delightful…" Harry said. The hissing sound in his ears was louder, Harry thought it might be coming from the ring.

"It is a signet ring Potter. It belonged to my mother's family. It has the crest of the Peverells on it. It is almost eight hundred years old. It does not have to be pretty!" Tom admired it for a second. "And it contains my horcrux as well. Does it call to you Harry Potter? It calls to me."

"The hissing? It's been doing my head in. Can I see it?"

Tom seemed a bit reluctant but he did take the ring off and give it to Harry. He looked curious about what was going to happen.

The moment the ring dropped into Harry's palm, the boy felt like he was being sucked back into the diary again. He saw flashes of memories.

Tom outside a run-down cottage, talking to a thin, sickly looking, middle aged man. The man was wearing the ring. There was a flash of green light.

Tom was wearing the ring. He was in a posh dining room and there was a family of three eating. He stepped forwards out of the shadows and brandished his wand.

Tom was standing over one of them, a handsome man in his thirties who looked very similar to the boy. He was casting some spells over the corpse and the ring.

"Potter, wake up!"

Harry sat up. Tom had to move quickly out of the way to avoid getting a Glasgow kiss*.

"I hate it when that happens," Harry said.

"It shouldn't happen much more now. It's three down, three to go. Then there's just the original!"

"Oh great, I forgot it was going to be so _easy_. Do you know what you're going to do with this one yet?"

Tom paused, rocking on his heels. "Sort of."

"Excellent…"

"I know the general plan, it might take a while to sort the whole thing though."

"So you're trying to re-attach all these pieces, right?" Tom nodded, "Are you gonna do it all at once?"

"That would probably be enough to kill me Potter. Even if nothing else would. That might even take out Voldemort and you. "

"So everyone wins." Harry said, voice heavy with the sarcasm, "Are you sure you know what you're doing? You said the other day that you were the only one that had done anything like this. Is it actually possible to re-join all your bits?"

"Someone has pieced themselves back together before. It is a very painful process. I have the feeling that you will feel some of the pain as well. It will probably make you feel pretty awful actually."

"Oh, good. I look forward to it." Yay, more pain.

Harry looked down at his hand, expecting the ring to still be in his hand. He was surprised to see that he was wearing it now. He only had small hands, but the ring seemed to be fitting over his thumb fairly well.

The boy frowned at it, "Sorry, Tom. You can have it back." He moved as if to pull it off but was stopped by the teenager.

"You can look after it for now," he said. "It's not like anything you could do in here could damage it after all.

"Well, thanks and all," Harry said awkwardly. "But I'm pretty sure that I don't want to wear a piece of your soul all the time if it's all the same to you."

"It is not all the same to me." Tom looked curious for a moment, "You already have some of my soul attached to your own. Why is this worse?"

Harry stared at him, incredulous. "It's different! I can't get rid of the part that's latched onto me. I don't need any extra."

Riddle frowned, "You're wearing it. It might help you to get rid of some of those deplorable Gryffindor tendencies."

He drew his wand and cast a spell which made the ring glow a strange purple colour for a second. "There, it will not come off."

Harry fumed internally. It drove him mad when Tom did things like this. He would let Harry feel like had a choice, or at least a semblance of free will and then crushed it on a whim. It made no difference to Tom if Harry had the ring or not, he was just doing this to manipulate the boy.

"It's giving me a headache," he complained. "It's not stopped hissing."

"You are a very moody teenager," Tom said, unconcerned. "Are you going to be like this for long? This could become tiresome very soon."

Harry shot him an annoyed look, "I'm not moody," he said. "It's annoying. And I'm not even a teenager."

"You're wrong on both counts, Potter. Check your facts next time."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked. "I'm pretty certain I know how old I am better than you do."

"Do you really?" Tom sneered. "I suppose you know the date then, don't you Potter."

Harry paused, he didn't know the date. He hadn't considered this. Was it possible that they had already passed his birthday? Had he turned thirteen without even knowing?

"I suppose you got me a present then?" Harry asked haughtily, trying to hide what he didn't know.

"Now, that sounds more like a Slytherin," Tom grinned. "You will need a bit more practice before you can trick me into revealing anything, Harry."

"You already have, you twit." Harry shot back, "You just told me my birthday has passed."

Tom's smile widened dangerously. "Don't try to pretend you manipulated that information away from me, boy. That was a free handout. Out of pity, nothing else. You hadn't even considered possibly learning anything when you began to sulk."

"And I did get you a present." He indicated the ring on Harry's thumb. "That is a priceless and very important family heirloom and I'm letting you look after it for now. You can go to your room now." He dismissed Harry with a wave of his hand. "I am not going to deal with you whining for the rest of the day, go to bed."

"But I don't understand." Harry argued, unmoving. "You didn't even want me to look at it before, so how come now I'm not allowed to take it off?"

"Potter, I do not have the patience for this. I'll put it simply for you, in words of one syllable. You are to wear the ring, now get out, or I will hex you."

Harry wanted to stay and argue but the way Tom was looking at him reminded him of how he tended to look before casting his more unpleasant spells. He had been hit with that _'Crucio'_ curse so recently, he really didn't want to experience it again.

So instead of fighting, he spun around and left the room.

Tom shouted after him, "If you could not act up for the next few hours, I will bring you down here for tea."

When he did let Harry come downstairs, hours later. Harry had wasted most of the day moping on his bed.

He had never had much in the way of birthday celebrations. He hadn't even known when his was until he was seven and his teacher had his class line up in age order. She had been surprised that he hadn't known but had looked it up for him on the register. Since then, Harry had always tried to keep track of the date in the summer holidays and celebrated it by himself in his cupboard. His eleventh birthday was his favourite so far, and most of that had been spent with his family fleeing to that hut where Hagrid had found them.

Last year had been bad, after the disaster with Dobby, Harry had been locked in his room for days. But at least after that he knew that his friends had tried to send him letters. Who knew what they thought was happening to him this year?

Nagini came into the room after that and she drew him out of his sulk. She told him about one of Tom's attempts at cooking which ended in him setting fire to one of his sets of robes. She had him crying with laughter in about two minutes and he was gasping for breath by the time she had finished describing Riddle smothering the flames by rolling around the floor.

Tom looked very suspicious when Harry kept giggling while he finished cooking. He didn't notice Nagini slithering around the floor, pointing out tiny scorch marks.

I'm sorry it's been so long. I've managed to keep getting distracted from this, but finally I got around to updating some of the mistakes in the previous chapters as well as completing this one.

*A headbutt. Glasgow doesn't have the best reputation among us Scots.


End file.
